


1st year of Chaos

by Elyrian_XIII



Series: 7 years of chaos [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, C&C are a thing, Chaos, Good Petunia Dursley, Harry is a smart cookie, I should add more but idk, M/M, Magical Dudley Dursley, OP Harry, Practically everyone is op tbh..., Ron Weasley Bashing, Sane Tom Riddle, Slytherin Harry Potter, Smart Harry, The OCs are op, The author sucks at tagging, crazy pairings, if you type 'harry is' while adding tags you get fun suggestions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-06-28 05:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 45,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15700731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elyrian_XIII/pseuds/Elyrian_XIII
Summary: On first year of Chaos my true love gave to meWhatever this is~~* * *What if Harry grew up spoiled, just like Severus always claimed him to be? If he was picked up from the doorstep moments after Dumbledore left him there? What if Fate, Death and Magic decided to meddle with human world just little a bit?Well you getthisconcoction, where Harry has a loving family and is making Dumby go mad without even trying.P.S. LeaderOfTheShadows is to blame for the existence of this chaotic idiotic madnessThe title is to be sung in the same was as 12 days of christmas ^^





	1. Beginning of Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> _~parseltounge~_

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ariel looks like this, but light, ice blue and has wings  
> https://68.media.tumblr.com/856eac559220dfe348096e2662d1cf0c/tumblr_n0kr0x8uHp1rgid5jo1_1280.jpg

Leaving writing acceptance letters to an enchanted quill was a thing long before Minerva McGonagall became the Deputy Headmistress, but the Headmaster looking over her shoulder as she added her signature to them wasn't. When he was close to vibrating on a spot as the quill produced a letter for one miss Sally-Anne Perks, she realised he was waiting for the quill to produce a letter for the boy who lived. Now both of them were paying attention as the quill wrote the standard letter and added the additional booklist for muggle-raised students, that the Headmaster removed, before it could be folded with the letter.

“I was informed Harry already knows these things. Surely he would prefer to read his new textbooks instead of this.” 

As he reassured the Deputy, he watched the quill writing Harry's address, wondering what the Dursleys did with the child. He hoped for inhumane living conditions, like a cupboard, but even a tiny bedroom would achieve the purpose of making Harry want to stay at Hogwarts, seeing him as a loving grandfather he never had. 

Now imagine his surprise when the address stated Harry lived in a place that even witches and wizards believed to be a myth. 

Before he could do anything about it, the letter sealed itself and a pure white snow owl took it. Not wanting his Deputy to realise he never checked on the kid - he even ignored letters Arabella Figg sent to him - he said nothing and hoped he could still use Hagrid to ensure Harry ended up being sorted to Gryffindor. After all, the son of two war heroes couldn't be anything but a lion, clad in red and gold.

* * * 

Unaware of the distress he was causing to one particular Headmaster, an almost 11 years old Harry ran through the forest. There was no reason to hurry, but he couldn't wait to reach Uncle Nik’s place. After all, the egg they’ve found was just about to hatch and he was determined to keep whatever animal that came out of it. Nik looked like he knew exactly what it was, but refused to tell him… Chaos only agreed to tell him, if Nik says he can do so, so that was another dead end.

Once he reached his destination, he knocked on the door in a secret pattern that Nik came up with, so he could enter on his own. Many wouldn't dare walking around the strange, little house, wary of sentient plants, moving walls and doors that just couldn't stay put, but the curious child spent most of his young life following Uncle Nik like a duckling and was as familiar with the place as the man himself. The door opened and went straight to the library, where he found a dark-haired man in his mid-twenties that he was looking for.

“Whatcha' doin'?”

“A teleport to Mars,” Nik spoke with a French accent.

“Does that mean I can go to Pigfarts?”

“And leave me alone with an overprotective Elise?” teased the man, reminding Harry of the blond nymph-looking woman that decided to be his mother.

“You’re her brother~”

Upon the reminder, Nik let out an unholy groan and let his head fall on the desk in front of him.

“Ohh gods _why!_ What did I do to deserve this!” hearing the child’s giggles, the man continued his exaggerated wailing, “Oh, cruel world! Fates have abandoned me! _The end is nigh!_ ” Nik straightened himself in his chair and pretend to be stabbed in the chest and raised his arm, as if he was reaching for something only he could see, as he whispered “Goodbye cruel world, I'm going into the light” and dramatically collapsed on the desk.

Harry, already used to this kind of dramatics, laughed even harder, when his Uncle stuck his tongue out like cartoon characters do, when they get knocked out. 

Once the laughter was subdued, the child dragged his Uncle to the pastel-coloured egg resting on the padded desk under a special heating lamp. Harry went through every book he could find on animals so he could identify it, but didn't find anything - except that his uncle was a meany for not telling him and probably hiding the books containing the information he was after… He tried to complain to his mother but he ended up using up all of his pouting and begging just so he could keep the egg… 

Even though he called Elise his mother and Nik an Uncle, he knew none of them were actually related. The entire island that he called home was made of all kinds of unusual people, that somehow managed to get on Chaos’ good side and were brought to the isle upon what would have been their natural death in the human world, where they continued to live forever, their bodies undying and frozen in time.

Some of them lived in the mansion in the middle of the island, others ~~Nik~~ had their homes in more secluded areas so constant explosions wouldn’t prompt them being thrown from a cliff. They were sometimes visited by those that were chosen by Order, War or Peace - the other three individuals with powers as great as Chaos’, granted to them by Magic, Fate and Death personally.

And there were Travelers - a group of adventurers and ~~wannabe~~ pirates, that spent their days traveling and exploring the places normal mortals have no access to. 

One of those Travelers saw a child, left on the doorstep in the beginnings of winter. So, like any reasonable pirate, Will took little Harry and brought him to the island, where Elise immediately decided to keep him. To be honest, everyone wanted to do that, since it turned out, that having heirs to lines, that died off centuries ago, would cause problems for those who wanted to keep the time and space in one piece… Honestly none of the people on the island wouldn't mind, since they were all Chaos's Chosen ones, but they feared Order throwing books at them enough not to mess with the timelines. Nik still remembers the tongue lashing, he got when he accidentally traveled back in time and started poking things…

But that happened a decade ago and now everyone treated him like their own, letting him in on “family only” secret like secret casserole recipe and the collection of weapon designs. 

So while pretending to be Nik and Will’s shadow, he picked up simple things like building robots and how to be a pirate. Even though Elise tried to prevent their local lunatics teaching him how to kill with only a needle, Will got him a dagger. “For self-defense~” he said, but everyone knew that he just wanted Harry to be a pirate like him. Sadly for Will, most had their bets on Harry ruling the world - even Chaos himself. 

Elise's glare was the only thing stopping the Travelers from taking Harry with them to anything that wasn't a metal concert. Apparently, not-quite-dead volcanoes and underwater cities aren't very child-friendly… At least they agreed to let him go to school once he's eleven. But what they didn't agree on was who exactly would be looking after him during that time. Nik claimed that he could help Harry with his studies, Will was certain he was the most adaptable, since he spent last few centuries traveling the world, while Elise played the “I’m the mother” card.

All in all, Harry's only worry was the egg in front of him. After much whining and begging for information, Nik finally gave him an actual time frame in which it should hatch - at least he played enough of Pokemon to know that his uncle was joking, when he told him to walk around with the egg and a flaming lizard in his backpack… 

“ **UNCLE NIK!!!** There's a crack!! It's hatching!”

An outsider couldn't tell who was more excited about the news, since they both went hyper. Upon hearing the sound of a breaking shell, Nik took the egg and pushed it into the child’s hands.

“It'll be your familiar, so you should be the first thing it sees after hatching” were Nik's last words before leaving the room.

Harry's excitement grew as he watched as more and more cracks appeared on the pale shell. It didn't take long for bits and pieces to start falling off and out of the broken egg came a small, diamond-shaped head, followed by a long blue neck. And a pair of wings…

~ _Well aren't you one special noodle,~_ he said softly. _~I never heard of a snake with wings…~_

____

____

_~I’m no snake, you fool! I’m a mighty dragon!~_

_~Mighty indeed. So mighty you could pass for a fancy necklace…~_ Harry shot back without thinking about taking animals. 

The little winged snake hissed and puffed at him, threatening pain and suffering should he not worship _~Ze Amazing Meh~_ At that Harry blinked. And then blinked again. 

_~Looks like someone was hatched with an ego but without a name~_ he teased. His guess was proven right, when he was challenged to pick a _worthy_ name.

After vetoing a bunch of names, ranging all the way from Jörmungandr (“Too mainstream of a snake - _~DRAGON!~_ \- name”) to John ( _~Too common, you mortal!~_ ), they agreed on Ariel, after the spirit from The Tempest. 

Little did Harry know that his familiar is actually the Dragon Snake Dragon that was only known to be red. And extinct since the times of Merlin himself. And wizards believed it’s just a myth. And that it’s technically a dragon and therefore illegal. 

Not like Harry would care about all that - he has his very own pet, one that he can talk to and that’s all that he wanted.


	2. The Letter and Trip to Gringrotts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This starts with grumpy owl's POV. Grumpy owls are not to be trusted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Will, Nik & Elise have their unique set of abilities that don't quite follow the logic other HP characters have

The life of a Hogwarts owl is probably the most comfortable life an owl can get. If everything goes well, you only need to work for a week or two per year, when students get their letters. Most never notice, but the owls have a system where the same owl delivers the book list every year to the student that got chosen to study magic at Hogwarts. The owls noticed that there's less and less students coming to school every year - not even one got to deliver an apprenticeship letter in over half a century! 

Anyways, the life of a school owl was a comfortable one - and that meant she definitely didn't expect to be tasked with flying all over the North sea in search of a forgotten island, just to deliver _one_ letter. Oh why did Chaos and Order have to have their lover’s spat two millenniums ago… Before it was all balanced in a creative-mess type of system, but Order just had to nag Chaos about leaving his socks around… Or was it because someone was snoring? Eh the snow white owl didn't care what it was. The old owls at the school owlery changed the story every time it was told and she wasn't one for listening to an hour long tale of humans being stupid.

Anyways, now the poor owl had to find Chaos' club of his favourite misfits… So no-one should be surprised that when she finally got to the said island, she first took a nap on the closest tree. 

But of course this is where Chaos's pets live, meaning that her rest lasted less than half an hour before she got knocked off the tree, because of course walking on the grounds was _too mainstream_ for some people and they just had to jump from branch to branch… If the owl could speak, she would probably yell about life not being an anime - that is, if she knew anime… But she's a school owl and has nothing better to do during the night than to fly over to a muggle town and watch TV through the window. If anyone noticed a grouchy looking owl enjoying muggle TV and anime, it was never brought to attention. 

Since the wannabe ninja woke the poor owl up, she decided that she could hitch a ride. The letter did say where Harry lived when she left the castle, but since it was in the middle of the day, she doubted that he would be where he should be. Meaning she would have to check the letter for current location, but without untying it. Maybe her human ride could give her a hand… 

Without a moment of hesitation, she bit the wannabe ninja’s ear, making him yeep and fall to the ground - the owl of course let go of him before he could drag her down. With a bit of pantomime and ignoring a steady flow of curses from the human, she managed to convey her need to find a specific child and had the man take her to him. 

When the human brought her to a lonely and a quite… _misshapen_ house in the middle of the forest clearing, she got sceptical about the success of human - owl communication, since the only other person around looked way to old to be attending Hogwarts for the first time, even if he acted the right age for it… Well it wasn't like she had to use her super duper amazing skills to find the recipient of the letter she carried when her owl senses could tell her the child’s exact location - but where would be the fun in doing that from the start? It's not like she would say no to all the petting and praising that her human carriage offered… But she had work to do, so with the last peck on the ear she rose to the air and let her senses guide her to the right window. 

Flying inside, she saw the correct child walking down the stairs with his familiar on his shoulder. Should she see a blue Dragon Snake Dragon anywhere else, she would probably be quite surprised, since the wizarding world thought them to be just myths, but she was a Hogwarts owl, meaning she spent her days listening to stories passed down through generations of owls and didn't think anything of the sight in front of her. She had a job to do. Not wasting time that she could use to force humans into petting her, she flew over the child and dumped the letter on his head.

Now that she delivered the letter, she just had to wait for the reply and that would be the end of her job for the year. And where better to wait than on Harry's head - his hair already looked like a bird's nest from running around the forest. It even had a few leaves and twigs in it.

Sadly her rest didn't last long as the child had the positive reply prewritten and handed it to her the moment she settled down. She did the owl's version of a pout and flew off. Lucky for her, one of the humans outside told her where she could hitch a ride on one of the ships.

It's not known if the owl heard a child's voice asking his uncle if owls liked pirates and deciding to call her Hedwig…

* * *

Later that day Will, Nik and Elise had a public rock-paper-scissors competition to decide who would go shopping with Harry and who would have to deal with everything else - fancy way of saying if Harry would first leave Will and Elise bickering in the nearest clothing shop (Will wanted a lot of leather and excess belts while Elise vetoed everything that wasn’t either green or blue and neither wanted Harry to wear forest green leather pants) or lost Nik in a book shop. Before they started Harry of course made sure to record how everyone placed their bets so he would know who will give him candy that day. When the spectators (and protection wards) were in place, the competition started with all three competitors using scissors. And then the actual fun started.

Will was the first one to make a move by summoning a cloud of arrow-like quills, that he aimed at the other two. Elise danced her way between the sharp weapons while conjuring a thick mist around the three of them. 

Nik didn't even bother moving beyond sitting down as he condensed the air and magic in front of himself into a shield with which he collected a good portion of Will’s quills. He transfigured them into two daggers that were capable of cutting through the mist and crawled his way to the source of the vibration, caused by Will's boots, he could feel through the floor. Due to the daggers in his hands, he could see in a meter and a half radius, successfully avoiding Elise's vines and Will’s traps.

It didn't takk long for him to see a pair of boots running around with Will’s voice above them chanting a spell, he created just because Elise loved creating mist. Nik rose to his feet and slashed his dagger toward Will, making the other man take a step back, not stopping his chanting. 

The pirate nonverbally conjured a pair of quills, that looked more like short swords than writing utensils, while continuing his chant and the two of them fell into a fast paced exchange of blows. As soon as Will completed the mist dispelling spell, he started chanting spells to increase the attacking power of his quills and making his hands resistible to cuts and other wounds. He wasn't the only one using magic in their low budget sword fight - Nik was transfiguring the shape and properties of his daggers in random intervals. 

What first looked like a serious fight soon turned in two overgrown children playing with toys. To emphasise this, an observant person could see Nik’s dagger turning into a rabbit for a second before he turned it into an unicorn, to counter Will’s new quills, summoned from chanting English nursery rhymes. The chants weren't as powerful as if Will translated them into German, but they were experimental spells so underpowering them was the safer option.

But then Will sneezed and Nik accidentally dropped one of his daggers and the transfiguration broke, leaving him with a pile of ashes. 

They were promptly pulled up by a pair of vines that tied themselves around their limbs, both suddenly too tired to continue to fight. Apparently Elise had upgraded her paralyzing vines yet again.

Knowing that they lost due to forgetting that they weren't the only ones fighting, they both moved their hands in a “I surrender” pose. Elise giggled and once again made the scissors sign that they started from, making cutting motions at her friend’s hands.

“Looks like scissors beat paper… _Again_ ,” Harry noted as his mother released the two men, who should know better by now and just let her have her way. Not that Harry minded - he got a plate of his favorite cookies from the bet.

* * *

It has been decided that they would go buy Harry's school supplies on his birthday. Nik and Elise created a trunk the size of a jewellery box, the inside of which Will enchanted to the size of a small house with compartments that opened to a library that connected to Nik’s book collection, a wardrobe and a general storage room with two side compartment - one for more delicate items such as potions and ingredients and one that was connected to a little storage cupboard in the mansion so they could send him items he forgot. A puppy eyes look later another room was added for Ariel, equipped with spells that would allow him to live inside.

They would go to the Diagon Alley for school books, potions ingredients and Harry’s uniform. Harry didn't see the point to having a wand, since he grew up watching everyone use exclusively wandless magic, but agreed to get one, since it was on his supply list. _Twice._

So on the morning of the 31st of July, they met in front of the simple statue of two Chinese dragons forming an archway. Will raised his right arm, pointed his palm towards the archway and chanted. 

**“Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand, brings uns in ein anderes Land! _Gringotts!_ ”**

He focused on the entrance room of Gringotts and added another chant as he walked through the portal that formed under the archway, to make it look like they walked through the door and not a magical portal, that closed after all of them stood inside the bank. 

They walked to the nearest goblin, skipping the line completely. Will greeted the teller in perfect Gobbledegook, without a hint of accent humans normally have while trying to speak magical languages. That instantly earned him the goblin’s full attention and willingness to assist.

They requested an inheritance test for Harry since his Hogwarts letter only included his birth name, ignoring that he was already accepted as one of Chaos’ Chosen ones, that would add _Nymphiros_ to his last name and grant him access to their vaults. 

The goblin teller didn't waste any time and led them to the area with the private offices. He led them to one and explained the situation to the goblin inside, before leaving the room.

“My name is Ironman.” the goblin introduced himself. Upon seeing the recognition on their faces he added: “Mother likes to observe what's going on in the Muggle world and father was content as long as there was “Iron” in the name… My sister is called Iron Maiden…”

Ironman explained the procedure for the inheritance test and what it would show them. Harry did as he was instructed and soon the results were in front of them. After reading his copy of the results, Ironman said what could only be translated from Gobbledegook as “Mommy” and called for another goblin who was instructed to bring the needed items for everything on the list, together with the wills of James and Lily Potter.

Nik took that as a clue to read the results:

_Harry James Potter Nymphiros_

_Heir of Chaos_

_Heir to:_  
Black  
Gryffindor  
Peverell  
Potter  
Slytherin 

_Gift of Chaos: Spatial magic_

_Note: Upon his first visit to the bank, he is to receive the copies of his parent's wills and the key to vault XIII, that he'll be allowed to enter when he turns 13.  
_

Upon reading the gift his nephew received, Nik started bouncing in his chair. They were already aware of Harry’s ability to create pockets of space, called Null space, that only he could access, so their full attention went to the fact that Chaos made Harry his official Heir. 

This was just so exciting! Harry would make half the teachers either give up their job or their sanity, just by being there. 

A couple of thousands years ago Fate, Magic and Death were bored being all alone, so they chose four mortals and granted them powers of Chaos, Order, Peace and War. They watched them grow and live their lives, somehow finding themselves because Fate and Death wanted some romantic drama since Order and War were females and the other two males. They had a bet going on if Chaos will end up dating Order or War, but were surprised that he ended up with Peace, making Magic win the bet he wasn’t even aware of. After a few years, Chaos left on a quest to find a cure for his daughter, not seeing the others until he gifted his first Gift of Chaos. But that's a story for another day.

For now, all that's important in the fact that as the Heir to Chaos Harry could use every Gift of Chaos ever given to his Chosen ones. 

It came with limitations, specifically needing to have permission from receiver of the Gift and only being to use one Gift at a time, until he perfected the use of them. 

They all agreed Harry should first learn to use Will’s chants, because Nik’s would be easier once he learns transfiguration on his own and Elise’s was too complex for him to just pick up… or any other human for that point.... The others would love to let Harry use their Gifts, but many have injured their users before they perfected them. And chants wouldn't interfere with his schooling.

With a look at his companions, Nik brought out his notepad and started writing down their ideas for creating maximum chaos that Harry was Heir of.

They were halfway through the second page when a goblin entered the room carrying six boxes and a folder. Five of the boxes contained heir rings that Harry was to put on his left middle finger. When he put the separate rings on, they merged, giving him full control over which crest was shown. With a mischievous smile he used a spark of magic with the idea of the ring being invisible and the ring did indeed turn follow his command. Ironman started to laugh.

“Headmaster Dumbledore loves to know everything about everything and everyone. I would love to see his face when he realises that you successfully kept this from him ” he explained with a bloodthirsty grin. There was no goblin that didn't outright hate Albus too-many-names Dumbledore and his creature laws.

The last box contained a key that had Harry thinking of the Keyblades from one of the games Will brought from his adventures. Ironman explained that this is the key to a vault that appeared in their bank almost 10 years ago. Apparently no-one knew who it belongs to or what's inside it since the key wouldn't leave the box. Seeing as Harry had no problems taking the key out, it was safe to assume that the vault was now officially his. 

Since they were already on the topic of keys, Ironman explained to Harry that since he's not in possession of his trust vault key, his heir ring shall act like the key to the vault his parents set for him shortly after his birth. The locks will be updated so that anyone trying to use the key will be thrown into the mines. 

A fixed amount of money is added to the trust every month, with a bit extra around the holidays and summer vacations, since it was meant to be his spending money. 

The continuing explanation was more for the adult’s sake than for Harry, since he was still too young to both understand and to care. Not to mention that by being accepted by the heir rings, the family charters explaining everything were automatically moved to his trust vault, so he could read more about it on his own time.

The amount would be raised each year after his 13th birthday. On his 15th birthday he will get control of Potter heir vault, so he could learn how to manage his finances. On his 16th he would get a few of his Wizengamot seats, only obtaining full control and Lordship of Potter, Black and Peverell families when he becomes 17 and Gryffindor after graduating from Hogwarts. 

There's someone before him in line to become Lord Slytherin, so he would have to wait for the man to either die or refuse his Lordship before Harry could obtain it after his graduation. 

To finish off the meeting, Ironman unsealed first the will of James and then the one his wife Lily made since he died first. The moment they were unsealed, multiple duplicates were made and sent off to the archives and heads of all departments connected to the contents. There were even copies headed to every vault Harry owned. Once that was done, Ironman started reading:

“Will of James Fleamont Potter. I, James Fleamont Potter, swear I’m doing this of my free will without the influences of spells and potions. The Fidelius charm guarding the location of my home was cast by Albus Dumbledore, the secret keeper was set to be Peter Pettigrew. Should the location be betrayed to the Dark Lord or any of his followers I want it known that Peter was the one to betray my family and I.

In case of my death I leave:

10 000 Galleons + free access to Potter library to Remus Lupin. 

10 000 Galleons and 5 Knuts to Sirius Black.

10 000 Galleons + free access to the Potter library to Severus Snape.

10 000 Galleons to Arthur Weasley.  


Everything else is to go to my beautiful wife, Lily Potter nee Evans and our perfect son, Harry.

If Lily dies before me, the guardianship over our son is to be granted in this order to:

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin

Frank and Alice Longbottom 

Arthur Weasley (only if he divorces Molly Weasley nee Prewett - suspicion of love potion)

Andromeda and Ted Tonks

Severus Snape

He is under no circumstances to go to Lily’s sister Petunia 

Harry is to get my special cloak and map on his 11th birthday. 

So mote it be”

Ironman skipped the personal messages and notes to the individuals that weren't present in the room. There was also a part that would change depending on the cause of death, so he only read what would come to be if they were betrayed to Voldemort.

Since it was Harry's eleventh birthday, he was given a piece of parchment that his father left to him. Harry put it away in his trunk for now.

Lily’s will was mostly the same, just that she replaced the library access with her personal research and had first listed Remus as a guardian and Severus afterwards, trusting them more than Sirius when it came to raising her child.

The goblin informed the adults that none of the people listed were capable of taking Harry in since Sirius was imprisoned, Remus outed as a werewolf, Frank and Alice suffered irreparable damage to their minds, Arthur was still married to Molly and barely able to support his own children while Andromeda was disowned for breaking a contract and thus unable to get guardianship of an Heir like Harry. Severus was a Death Eater during the war and even with Dumbledore claiming he was a spy for their side, the public was weary of him.

The adults decided to let the goblins create fake identities for the three of them, so they could have legal guardianship over Harry, since officially they were supposed to be dead for decades. They decided to stick close to the truth and be listed as siblings with last name Nymphiros.

Legal matters resolved, Will asked the goblins to let both Elise and Nik have free access to the vault he set up in his youth and gave them duplicates of his key, so they could use them to pay for Harry's supplies.

Another set of traditional Gobbledegook greetings and they were on their way out of the bank.


	3. Shopping trip

Because Elise won in rock-paper-scissors, their first stop was getting school robes and other clothing for Harry. Just looking at Madam Malkin's had her shiver and a glance at Will confirmed that they won’t be setting a foot in there except for if it was absolutely necessary. Meaning only if the world was ending and they had to save a kitten from the ruins. 

It didn’t take long before Harry was dragged off to Twilfitt and Tatting's while Nik went to buy the necessary books. 

To Elise and Will’s dismay, they were told that they can only get Hogwarts robes at Madam Malkin’s. A moment of thought was all that it took before Will got a maniacal expression and ordered a pile of black cloth. Elise quickly caught on and ordered a few pieces of cloth as well. If they couldn’t buy good enough school uniforms, they could sew them themselves. It’s not like they couldn’t - Elise only wore clothes that she bullied Nik and Will into making for her. There was no way they would ever step in Madam Malkin's shop.

They still had the assistants take Harry’s measurements and ordered some of the nicer looking robes and leather boots. Even if the shop was infinitely better than Madam Malkin's, the clothes barely reached their quality standards. Good thing they always get their fighting clothes in Italy.

The bought cloth was swiftly put in Harry’s box-sized trunk and they would return for the fitted clothing in a few hours. 

Their next stop was to dig Nik out of the book shop, which was sadly right next to Madam Malkin’s. Harry didn’t seem to have the adult’s apprehension for clothing and ran ahead, only to bump into a blond boy his age. In another life, they would quickly apologise to each other and go their separate ways, but in this one Elise showed up just in time to ask the boy if he’s also going to Hogwarts, prompting the children to talk over what they knew of the mysterious school they would be attending strting September. 

Just as Will and Elise realized that the boys will end up being great friends, Nik exited the shop in company of a man with long hair that was still shorter than Will’s brown locks. He looked like he could be the blond boy’s father.

"Huh, looks like we found our brats." said Nik in a teasing tone.

The man didn’t hesitate to return the jab: "Yours might be a brat, but Draco’s a delight … An extremely spoiled one, but a delight nonetheless."

Upon hearing his name Draco turned around and started blabbing to his father about how he made a friend. When he realised that he didn’t know his new friend's name, he got such a cute confused expression on his face, the adults couldn’t help but share a fond smile - or in Lucius’ case a smirk, since they were in public. It would be very unbecoming of a Malfoy to smile. Or show any kind of emotion. 

Determined to make up for his forgetfulness, the boy introduced himself just like he was taught from in etiquette lessons. 

"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy. Pleased to meet you."

Suppressing his need to laugh at the very Bond introduction, Harry smiled and said.

"Call me Harry."

As the boys shook hands, the adults realised they’ll be seeing a lot of each other and introduced themselves. Will, Nik and Elise told Mr Malfoy, who insisted on being called Lucius, their cover story: they are siblings who found a child, wrapped in a blanket, on a doorstep one night with only a short note that only said that his name is Harry and his parents recently passed away.

Technically they weren’t lying, since Will did find Harry on the doorstep - they just neglected to say that it wasn’t their doorstep. There was no need to spill the beans in the middle of Diagon Alley, even if they had a privacy spell that activated itself every time they talked about something private.

The elder Malfoy raised one eyebrow at them since Nik had a French accent, Elise spoke with a mix of British and American, while Will was clearly more comfortable in Germanic languages, but said nothing - everyone had secrets to keep.

The group decided to meet up with Lucius’ wife, Narcissa, at Ollivander's before the men would go get the rest of the supplies, including picking up the clothes, and the women would wait with the boys while they get their wands. Afterwards they’ll meet at the most important stop of the day - Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour.

* * *

Not many knew but Narcissa loved wand lore. There was just so much one could learn about a witch or wizard just knowing what their wand is made of. Sadly Dumbledore only allowed kids to use wands with one of three specific cores while attending Hogwarts and only those whose ancestors studied at the great castle before Dumbledore became the headmaster knew that they should get another one. Not all were born with light magical cores that respond well to Unicorns, Dragons or Phoenixes.

But even if they were told by others to do so, many would ignore the well meaning advice, not wanting to repeat the tedious ‘try random wand’ procedure that was the only way to fit a wand to a wizard with only using three cores. Wandmakers would usually present samples of wood and cores to the wizard and then select the materials that suit their magic. Making wands from multiple cores and woods was nothing unusual, just the crafting process took a bit longer. 

She was just in a middle of a fascinating discussion with Mr Ollivander and his son when the little bell announced customers. 

Immediately she was hit with a flood of words from her over excited son, introducing her to his new friend, Harry. She in turn introduced the boys to both Ollivanders so they could get their school wands. 

Lucius quickly introduced everyone and they exchanged the obligatory ‘Nice to meet you’’s and ‘call me by my given name’’s. They briefed Narcissa on their plan for the day and before another word could be said, the men left the shop. 

"This wandmaker has quite an unusual way of matching wands and wizards." commented Elise with a slight frown on her face.

"That’s because children are only allowed wands with one of three cores while in school." complained the other woman "I take it you’ll also have another wand made for Harry?"

Elise shook her head and fondly elaborated after seeing a confused expression on Narcissa’s face ‘’He’s only getting a wand because it’s written that he must have one - I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost it before his first day of classes.’’ 

Narcissa wanted her to explain more, since this was the first time she heard of a child not wanting a wand, although she knew some parents forced family wands on their children. She was spared from trying to dig up more information after Harry got rejected by the fifth wand in a row and got annoyed at having to try random wands. Meaning that the next wand better be what it has to be, or he’ll just bring a random piece of wood to school.

But just trying a wand he was given wouldn’t be fun. So he decided to use one of the chants WIll showed to him. 

He pointed his right arm, his palm open, towards the collection of wands and focused on an imagine of a wand flying through the air in his hand, followed by green and silver sparkles that appeared when Draco found his wand. Than he spoke:

**"Komm, mein Zauberstab!"**

It literary meant ‘come, my wand’ and did just that - it summoned the person’s wand. Will had no need for it, but he dug it up once he realised a wand is obligatory and Harry would be as forgetful of it as he was after getting his Gift of Chaos. He first planned on fixing the incantation to fit Harry’s wand specifically, but there was no need now that they knew Chaos made him his Heir and Harry was able to learn to use the chants. 

Elise was the only person not openly gaping when a holly wand with phoenix feather core landed in Harry’s hand and shot colourful sparkles. But she was surprised at how easily using Will’s Gift came to Harry. Especially because Wills Magic Language was German and Harry still didn't found his preference - he just copied whatever he saw others do. 

Gifts, especially Chaos’, were specifically tailored to the individuals who wielded them, so it would take a lot of effort for anyone else to use them. Will was a writer and has read more fiction than anyone she ever met, that's why he had the advantage when using the Gift of casting magic by chanting quotes from other people's works or could come up with his own sayings.

That would make him quite overpowered, but he is also a person who won't use a chant if it doesn't sound good. Meaning a lot of German and children nursery rhymes.

Like any proud parent she gladly paid for the wand and a wand holster that would hopefully prevent Harry throwing the wand through the first window he encounters at Hogwarts. 

It took her a moment to stop gushing over her son and notice the looks they were getting from Draco and Narcissa, but she didn't know why they were getting them. Maybe it was just that Harry used a spell in German while British wizards and witches in general preferred Latin as their Magic Language.

“You can do wandless magic?!!” Draco said, acting like the eleven years old that he was, even if his mother stood right besides him. 

In a normal situation Narcissa would remind her son of his etiquette lessons, but she let it slip since she wanted to know aswell. 

“Wandless magic? What do you mean by that? I just used a spell Uncle Will thought me,” was Harry's cute, innocent response.

With a fond smile Elise crouched down to his level and explained “Harry sweetie, a lot of kids need wands to help them focus on casting and they help to direct their magic. Draco is probably just surprised you don't need the training wheels anymore.”

“You're quite early - I was few years older than you are now, when I was able to ditch the wand,” she added with a wink.

With that she took Harry's hand and suggested they make their way to the ice cream parlour, prompting the blonds to motion. She didn't need to offer the boys ice cream twice before Draco already took Harry from her and dragged him a couple of steps in front of their mothers. He could find the ice cream parlour with his eyes closed.

* * *

On the way to the ice cream parlour Narcissa started a conversation by asking the question that was on her mind even since her husband introduced them.

“I hope you don't mind me asking, but where did you get your dress? I haven't seen anything like it, neither here nor in France.”

Elise's dress was a perfectly fitted white chiton that reached to her knees, with multiple pieces of light green see-through fabric, added on the shoulders and around the waist. The extra pieces of fabric moved in the wind every time Elise moved, creating an illusion of her walking under water.

With a smile Elise told Narcissa how Will bought the chiton in Greece, added the extra fabric and bullied Nik into transfiguring a pair of shoes to fit the dress. 

Lady Malfoy was surprised by the fact that the dress was originally muggle, but looked better than most of the items she could find in the magical world. 

After they exhausted the theme of clothing, Narcissa, just like any British witch or wizard, naturally moved to the topic of Hogwarts.

“What house were you and your brothers sorted to? I don't remember you during my time in school. Lucius and I were, just like the rest of our relatives, in Slytherin.”

She expected at least Elise to be a Slytherin since she had green highlights in her blonde hair. It was a light green, but the colour could just wash out after time.

“Oh, we didn't go to Hogwarts. We were all homeschooled because we moved a lot. Harry wanted to go to this school because we learned that his birth parents also went there.”

Technically this was a lie. Both her and Nik went to Hogwarts, but it was in a different time in a different situation. Nik first went there as an adult - he was a squib, who was sent the muggle world and somehow ended up travelling to the past, where he met Chaos and became Chaos’ second chosen one. Elise was born there.

Elise told Narcissa their cover story of three siblings who found and adopted Harry. She hinted that he had designed guardian after the death of his parents, but didn't reveal that they knew who left Harry on the doorstep that night.

They were interrupted by the arrival of her husband and Elise's brothers. Narcissa was about to move to make more space at the table they occupied, but the brother with short black hair waved his hand above said table, making it expand enough to fit them all without anyone moving. Before anything else could be said, the other brother murmured something under his breath while making a sweeping motion with his hand and three chairs appeared so the men could sit down.

“You don't have to brag.” 

Will replied to his new friend by creating a privacy bubble that concealed everything except the fact that they were there, and earned himself a “Why do I even bother?” from Lucius, who apparently got used to the weirdness that is the Nymphirose family. Or at least the adults - he hasn't been witness to a child doing wandless magic on a whim.

“But why would you have an owl fly across the sea for a letter, when you can simply use a phone? Or just make a black mirror? It's not hard...” 

And now Lucius witnessed a child talking about the creation of dark magical artefacts _not being that hard._

He was about to respond when Will beat him to it.

“Harry, I believe many would appreciate their mirrors _not_ changing to communication devices whenever you want to talk to them.”

“Nor would you appreciate hearing your friends singing in the shower,” Nik added with a grin.

The comment earned him laughter an a playful slap on the back of his head. 

“Hogwarts doesn't have electrical outlets, right?” Elise enquired. She bought Harry a cellphone for his birthday, so she could contact him, but he would need to have a way to charge it.

“She doesn't, but I'm working on an adapter that will turn magic into electricity,” Nik informed her “I’ll be probably done by the end of the week.”

“But you said you're making a teleporter to Mars!” 

“Shhh, don't tell them of our escape plan.”

“Ok, I won't tell them until we sacrifice Will to fuel it.”

“Why me?! Why not Elise?”

“Because aunt Helga likes her better and if we chose you over her, she owes us a life debt that we can use to get her to ask for an unlimited supply of Aunt Helga's sweets.” 

Lucius was impressed - Harry just used life debts casually in a joke, showing he actually understood them, when he had trouble teaching Draco how life debts were actually created. 

“Boys, you're forgetting one small detail.” 

They all turned to Elise.

“The spells needing a life sacrifice normally don't specify that it has to be a human being that's actually worth anything, so why not just sacrifice Dumb-butt-sore? You would do a favour to practically everyone living in Britain.”

“My dear, I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship,” Narcissa added, as she blew a kiss in Elise's direction.

“And wouldn't that make your husband jealous?” Elise joked back.

Narcissa’s face turned sour at the reminder, saying “Arranged marriage.”

After spending time with both Nik and Will, Lucius realized that they're on the same side - even if somehow their only connection to the war was Dumbledore. A nod from his wife was a go ahead for him, to explain the entire situation.

“Our parents created an one-child contact between Narcissa's sister Andromeda and I. We both agreed to it since afterwards we would be free of marriage contracts and could choose our spouses without fear of being disowned. The point of the contract was that we were supposed to have one child together, who would be Malfoy heir regardless of their gender, without being actually married. This way I would have a heir without marrying a woman, since I'm attracted to men.”

Seeing no reaction except being prompted to go on, he continued more calmly.

“About half a year after we signed the contract, she turned seventeen and eloped with another male student. Since the contract was still in play, it back-leashed and turned into a contract between ‘Cissa and I that is binding until Draco starts Hogwarts. Since she won’t be my wife anymore, the wards will throw her out until I can key her back in. She already started renovating Grimmauld place - Black family home so she could move in.” Draco already knew about this. They explained it to him when he turned eleven and reassured him that his mother will still be there for him, she will just move to the Black family home. 

When the fact that Narcissa was a Black was revealed, Will, Nik and Elise all recognised the last name. With a bit of legilimency and occlumency they agreed to share what they learned from the Potter wills, mainly that Sirius was listed as a possible guardian and that the wills left by Harry's parents are enough evidence to set him free. They could ask the goblins to do it while they were at the bank, but at the time they honestly didn't care enough to ask. 

The news made Narcissa cry.

She was always close to her cousin and it broke her heart that she couldn't do anything to get him free without risking Azkaban herself. Now they could set Sirius free legally and there's nothing that can stop them.

In the emotional roller coaster that Narcissa was going through, the Malfoys didn't make the obvious connection of Harry being Harry Potter.


	4. Every birthday needs a birthday party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lovely Heccate was kind enough to help me edit this madness :P 
> 
> We edited the previous chapters & they gained at least a thousand words just from the articles I _forgot_ ~~I'm at war against articles xP~~
> 
> Ps it's short but next one is extra long...

Both Harry and Draco wanted to hang out during the last month of summer, so the adults made plans for a few play dates. Harry couldn't wait to introduce Draco to Ariel, who learned how to wrap his wings around his body so he looks like a completely ordinary blue snake.

Draco didn't say anything about wanting to ever meet a snake, but he was all about Slytherin, so he shouldn't have a problem with one. 

It was already late afternoon when they said their goodbyes - Will adding some extra flair by kissing Narcissa's hand. He turned towards Lucius, to do the same, but before he could took hold of his hand, Lucius used it to flip his hair over his shoulder and give him a look that said “I’m way too good for you, you peasant”, causing them to share a final laugh, before canceling the privacy spells and going their separate ways.

Will lead them back to Gringotts, where he made another portal, this time first putting up a privacy barrier and than chanting the spell. 

Harry almost forgot that the day was his birthday, but was reminded of it when they all came through the portal and everyone who lived on the island - including all of the Travelers - and even some of the other Chosen ones yelled “Happy birthday” and started singing various birthday songs until they felt Harry was embarrassed enough for one day.

They then lead him to the round table, that they somehow successfully dragged out from the dining room in the mansion and loaded it with all of Harry's favourite foods. In the middle there was a cake with eleven candles.

Harry cut the cake and they began their dinner. 

He had so much fun that he didn't notice that Chaos wasn't there until the end of the meal, right before the missing man made his appearance. 

Somehow his arrival was timed so that when Harry asked where Chaos is, said man could say “Right behind you”. 

Harry jumped out of his seat and tackled the dark haired man, who looked like he was in his late thirties, while yelling “Grandpa”. 

From a decade of experience of dealing with Harry, Chaos easily caught the boy before he got tackled to the ground and lifted him up. He had to take few steps back to balance himself. 

“Hey, what about my hug?!” 

Hearing that, Harry looked around and saw another man and two women that he knew as Uncle Ric, Aunt Helga and Aunt Rowena. They were also known as Peace, War and Order, but Grandpa Salazar was the only one he called by his title. 

Godric was a tall man - he was taller than Salazar by a few centimetres. He looked to be a bit younger than Sal and had short light brown hair and green eyes. 

Helga and Rowena looked like they were each other’s opposites, with Rowena being almost as tall as the men while Helga was on the short side, only reaching to Chaos’ shoulders. She had sparkling brown eyes and honey colored hair that she had braided in four small french braids that were all tied together in a suebian knot, while Rowena prefered to wear her raven hair loose, even if it often fell in her bright golden eyes. 

Since Godric was the first to complain about the lack of a hug, Chaos passed Harry to him first. After almost strangling Ric, he jumped down and hugged Helga and Rowena, who was holding a nicely decorated box with a silver bow.

“Now that we have been bribed with hugs you may receive you birthday present, oh mighty warrior!” Rowena said dramatically as she kneeled down so she could hand the box to Harry.

Everyone quieted down to see how Harry would react to the gift. They had called in a few favours and pulled some strings to get it on time. Or more like them, since it was a two part gift, like Harry discovered when he opened the box and found two violin cases in it.

He expected to get a new violin since he was tall for an eleven year old and his violin was starting to feel a bit too small for him, but he didn't expect to get two of them. 

“Open this one first.” suggested his best friend, Luna, while Chaos kept Ric from jumping up and down.

So Harry opened the case that was pointed to and found a beautiful, full sized violin with gold accents. As he picked it up, he noticed a string of runes, engraved on the sides. They were done by hand, just like the golden accents. 

He took the bow out of the case and gave it a try. 

Harry played ever since he was six when Elise gave in to his begging and Chaos agreed to teach him. She wasn't sure if his fascination would continue after realising how hard it was to learn, but she was pleasantly surprised when he dutifully practiced, not missing a day ever since he first started. 

Seeing him play on what was already a full sized violin reminded her just how fast the time passed. And she wasn't the only one. Everyone seemed to slowly realize that the little boy they took in as their own will soon leave them and that someday he might not return.

But the sad thoughts were put on hold when Harry put down the new violin. He spread his arms and reached as far back as he could. He focused on his spacial magic and black mist formed around his hands. When he pulled his hands forward, we was holding his old violin and bow. 

He levitated them while he leaned down and touched the ground next to his feet. The black mist formed around his hand again and this time he pulled out a violin case. He put his old violin in it and then placed his new one, together with a bow in Null space. The case with the items needed to properly take care of the instrument was put in the area next to his feet. 

He was then prompted to open the second case.

He didn't have to be told twice. 

Inside there was another violin, but this one was made of black metal. It still had the shape of a violin, but it was thinner - it's body was’t a hollow box like normal violins were. Confused, he turned it around and found a little box for a battery and a few outputs for cables and headphones. 

_It’s an electric violin_ , he realised.

The case also included a bow, headphones, extra batteries and a cable for an amplifier that Nik built a few years ago.

Excited, he gave it a try. It sounded a bit different from his previous violins but he loved it just the same. It would make playing songs like Thunderstruck way easier.

Soon both Harry and Chaos started exchanging the electric violin, one playing while the other one was dragged off to dance with their friends. They even did a few songs that combined electric and acoustic violin.

Later that night when Harry went to bed, his last thought was _This was the best birthday ever,_ before he fell asleep.

* * *

That same night when Harry had the time of his life, Dumbledore was furious.

He sent Hagrid out at the Diagon Alley every day, to look for a boy with short black hair, green eyes and glasses. 

He originally wanted the half-giant to get Harry from his relatives, but he was obviously not there. Petunia wasn't even aware her sister died and was still sending holiday cards to the Potter family manor every year. When she was told of Lily's death, she almost had a nervous breakdown - especially because Dumbledore just turned around and left after being told that Harry had never been there.

First he wanted to use his various devices that would allow him to locate the boy, but they all resulted in one failure after another. The spells that were supposed to show the boy only showed mist and if he tried to get a written location he only got the name of the island. 

In a single week he broke almost half of the things he had in his office with his bare hands. Luckily a swipe with the Elder wand put everything back in its place.

He was so sure Hagrid would recognise the boy, but he always came back saying he didn't see him. At least he recognised most of the past and current students, as well as the children from wizarding families that will soon study at Hogwarts. He learned many things that escaped his notice during the school year. 

For example, last week Hagrid told him that he saw Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint, along with some other quidditch players, discussing the new Nimbus broom, despite the fact that they were from different houses. The thought of Gryffindors being friendly with Slytherins had him furious, but now that he knew of it, he could fix it. If he had managed to get Lily away from Severus, he would have no problem separating old rivals.

Today Hagrid told him that he saw the Malfoy family eating ice cream with three strangers and a boy who will probably come to Hogwarts in September. 

Hagrid not knowing the child's parents probably meant that that he's a muggleborn, but if that was the case, the Malfoys wouldn't even spare them a glance.

His eyes lightened up - maybe this child was Harry! But that would mean the Malfoys knew who he was. Worried, he asked Hagrid for more information.

The child was tall for his age, thin and very energetic. He had bright, emerald green eyes, but they had a ring of yellow-green surrounding the emerald and he didn't need glasses. His hair was neat and tied in a short ponytail, nowhere near being the Potter-patented mess. No, the boy couldn't be Harry.

Hagrid could also describe him how the adults looked like. Dumbledore really was a great man with how he payed attention to every single student.

Hearing that the woman was pale, blond and with an obvious preference for green and that at least one of them spoke with a distinct French accent calmed Dumbledore’s nerves greatly. They were probably from a line of Malfoys that stayed in France. The man with an accent was probably her husband and the other man sounded like some sort of a bodyguard. 

After promising to come around for tea, he dismissed Hagrid and his thoughts returned to the Potter boy. He trashed his office in a childish fit. By now the brat should already be found and introduced to the wizarding world. Harry must come to Hogwarts and be sorted to Gryffindor - for the Greater Good. The world needed a hero and for almost a decade they had Harry. If it comes out that he lost the Saviour, there will be a massive panic. 

Sure, he could say Neville is the child of prophecy, but he already spread the legend of Harry Potter, the baby who defeated the Dark Lord. He still didn't know how he survived that fateful night, but it was probably related to love his parents had for him. There's no other explanation than love - everything else would be too Dark. James and Lily would _never_ even think of doing something Dark.


	5. End of Summer

During the last month of freedom before going to school, Harry saw Draco three times more.

* * * 

The first time he was invited to visit the Malfoy manor with his guardians, they used Will’s portal to get to Diagon Alley and then borrowed Gringotts’ Floo. The goblins didn't mind, but made it clear that they were the only ones allowed to do so.

They decided to let Harry experience a normal play date and that they'll try to hold back on using their gifts.

The normalcy lasted for all of five minutes when Lucius wanted to know their Floo address, so that the boys could visit each other easier.

Harry couldn't determine if the Malfoys were more surprised that they were allowed to use Gringotts’ Floo - Lucius looked like he didn't even know Gringotts had one -, by the fact that they don't have one at home, Will's portals or that the island is called Tir na Nog, more commonly known as Avalon.

In the end he decided that Ariel took the prize for best shock, since Narcissa fainted when she noticed him on Harry's head.

It also turned out that Draco indeed liked snakes and had been asking for one ever since he was old enough to understand why he can't have a pet dragon.

* * * 

The second time he visited the Malfoys, Will opened a portal directly to the manor. Draco was already waiting and snatched Harry the moment he arrived. That day he was introduced to Theodore, Daphne, Blaise and Pansy while Will talked with their parents.

The adults wasted no time and bombarded him with questions about his blood status and on which side he was during the war. After Will answered everything while dogging the answers they were actually after, they all relaxed since he passed their little test. 

From there the conversation went to political matters and also clearing up a few misconceptions about the Dark side's motives and goals. They made it clear that whatever he heard of the last war was mostly propaganda, spread by the Light side.

Remembering the etiquette that was forced onto him by his mother (and later reinforced by Elise), he waited patiently until the adults stopped talking - leaving a few questions about the details of Dark side’s ideas for later - before he said:

“Oh, so then the Britain didn't collectively lose their marbles and start supporting slavery! Good to know my dear folks!”

That got him odd looks from everyone but Lucius and Narcissa who were already used to hearing weird thing when they were in the presence of anyone with the last name Nymphirose.

On the insistence of Lord Nott he explained how Dumbledore was actually connected to Grindelwald and the previous war. He talked about it in the same tone that anyone else would use when talking about the weather or what they had for lunch and finished it off with:

“Well even if Dumby toned it down on ruling the world, I prefer Voldie’s ideas. But let's be honest, if anyone's taking over the world, I would place my bets on our little Harry.” in a proud-parent-voice he added “He's gonna make an excellent viking pirate overlord.” 

That day Will and Harry left with everyone gaping at them. Apparently other kids can't talk to snakes...

* * * 

The third visit was arranged when Lucius met Nik at the ministry.

The three siblings were informed that they had to pass British NEWTs to be able to hold official guardianship in Britain and Nik was appalled by the low number of subjects that they could test for. 

He made special arrangements with the head of the Department for Education: The ministry will contact witches and wizards with masteries in all of the subjects that the three siblings wanted to take - for some they even had to contact foreign ministries so they could send them the exams.

He was just headed out when he saw a distressed Lucius. It turned out that he needed a babysitter for Draco, but his usual one got sick and he didn't want to leave his son alone with only house elves or strangers.

Nik offered to look after the little Draco and they agreed to bring Harry over to the Malfoy Manor for a sleepover. He could send Draco with Nik to Avalon, but he didn't want to risk his son getting hurt somewhere where he doesn't have access to.

After they went their separate ways, Lucius informed Narcissa that they got a babysitter and that she should prepare Draco’s room for a sleepover.

The sleepover was a success, even if the Malfoys were left confused by how their son was suddenly able to levitate object just by pointing his wand at them.

* * * 

The summer passed quickly and before he knew it, Harry was already handed a lunch box and a few Galleons for sweets on the Hogwarts express.

After making sure he had everything, Will opened a portal to Malfoy manor, where they picked up Draco, Lucius and Narcissa. From there another portal was opened to King's Cross. The Malfoys could easily Apparate or Floo directly to platform 9 ¾ but they wanted to try Will's portals. This way both boys could experience walking through the barrier and next time Will will be able to open the portal directly to the station.

Walking through the portal felt like walking through a wall of water - including the fact that you can't breathe underwater. The trip only lasted a few moments, but that was enough for the Malfoys to learn about the feature. Will and Nik thought it hilarious, while Elise settled on a mischievous smile. Harry didn't even notice and instead started asking Nik how trains work.

They had a short walk to the correct platform. Walking through the barrier turned out to be nothing special after experiencing Will's portals.

Lucius went on the train with Draco and Harry, so he could enlarge Draco’s shrunken trunk back to its original size. He wanted to do the same for Harry, but was shown the jewelry box and how it worked. He was impressed.

They walked back on the platform. Lucius first planned on introducing Draco to Crabbe and Goyle’s sons. Their families were bound to Malfoys as protectors for many generations, even if all that was left from their former glory as powerful duelists and intelligent men was their size. The wizarding world was at a lost as to how that happened. 

At least until he mentioned that to his new friends. 

Elise couldn't stop her instinct to hit her face with her hand. 

“Ouch!” 

A moment of silence.

“Well at least this hurt less than the stupidity that's so popular these days…”

They agreed that it would be better to spend the time left with Harry and Draco before the train leaves, since the explanation ‘why only marrying purebloods is stupid’ could wait for later.

The whistle sounded too early for their liking, but both children were excited to see Hogwarts for the first time. Final hugs were given and they ran to the compartment they had chosen earlier.

There they were soon joined by their friends.

Two or three hours later, they were talking about their summers. When it was Harry's turn, he mentioned how he got a phone and that the magic-to-electricity adapter was a success. The other kids looked at him as if he was speaking Chinese, so he had to explain  
electricity and muggle technology.

After a few failed attempts at giving an understandable explanation to kids who had never even seen a muggle lamp, he settled for saying that electricity is muggle magic. The purebloods of course didn't believe him, so he showed them his phone.

Draco thought that the blonde girl on the picture Harry had for his background looked familiar, but couldn't figure out why.

Harry showed them a few photos of his extensive family and blueprints he had saved on his phone so he could fix his various ~~toys~~ devices if any of them broke. 

After showing them some games he had on his phone, he played an audio file of Für Elise. Theodore was immediately impressed since he had been forced to learn how to play piano. He never got to play anything like this and wanted to try it. Harry did a quick search on the internet and found the sheet music for the song in less than a minute.

When he showed Theo the picture, he was met with five gaping faces.

“How did you find this so quickly?!!”

Not wanting to deal with another set of failed explanations, he just said “I just wrote what I wanted to know in a browser - that's like a muggle spell that finds articles that include the words I wrote.”

“Well that would be damn useful to have…” complained Draco. His father had him memorise the location of every section of their library and he still sometimes found himself in the herbology section when he was looking for fiction.

Harry never had a need for this kind of spell - Nik’s library had a weird system, but it somehow worked and he had no problem operating in it. So he did what he normally did when he needed information but didn't know where to find it - he called Elise.

He told his friends what he'll do as he dialed Elise's number, that was simply tagged as “Mom”. He put it on the speaker so others wouldn't think he was making things up.

“Hello honey! Did you eat your lunch?”

All eyes were focused on the phone in Harry's hand. He held it a few centimetres from his face so the others could see it while it was still close enough that Elise could hear him well.

“Not yet mom. Theo, Daphne, Pansy and Blaise,” he looked at each as he named them, not wanting to miss anyone “joined Drake and I and we forgot about the time.”

If Draco had anything to say about his new nickname, he kept it to himself.

“I'm glad to hear you're having fun. But don't forget to eat - I put some of Aunt Helga's puffs in your box, so you can share them with others.”

“The ones with cherries?” he immediately pulled his lunch box out of his trunk and put it on the seat between Theo and himself.

“Yes, and chocolate chip cookies too,” she giggled. Her son loved anything with cherries.

At that point, Draco nudged him with his foot. He knew that if he didn't do anything, Harry would go of on a tangent and end up forgetting why he called his mother in the first place.

“Oh by the way mom, I just showed everyone how internet browsers work and now we're wondering if there's a wizarding version of this?” Harry said as he glared at Draco.

Elise thought for a moment before replying “Nik uses a modified point me spell, because _Books and magic don't mix. Ever,_ ” she quoted her brother, “Will mostly just yells _Wo ist …_ since it works for everything he lost… Just a moment sweetie.”

Elise went silent for a second as they heard her move the curtains and open a window.

“Nik, is that a death ray?!!” they could hear her screech, even if she obviously wasn't speaking into the microphone.

“Maaaaaybe?” said another voice, that one barely audible and sounding like the man was far away.

“Harry, sweetie, go eat your lunch. I have to kill your Uncle. Call me when you get to Hogwarts!” said Elise in a cheerful voice.

“I will mom! Bye bye!” 

Harry pressed the red button and the call ended.

“Death ray?” 

Harry's friends had no idea what to think about the end of that conversation. Draco knew Harry was extremely fond of all his Aunts and Uncles, so why was he smiling when his mother just said she'll kill one of them?

“Yea, Uncle Nik declared war against squirrels last week.” Harry said as if that explained anything.

“But a death ray?!”

“Yeah, there's a rule about guns not being allowed near kids and Uncle Nik is, according to Grandpa, still a kid.”

That explained even less, but they let the matter drop, because Harry opened his lunch box and offered a puff to everyone.

They were munching on their lunches when a woman with a trolley knocked on their compartment doors and offered them candy.

Draco stocked up on chocolate frogs, Daphne showed preference for Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, Blaise and Theo both bought a number of Pumpkin Pasties and Cauldron Cakes while Pansy took one of everything her friends ordered plus a few Liquorice Wands.

The only cherry flavoured sweets the witch had were Blood pops. They were a part of a collection of lollipops that tasted like normal sweets but were named after other things with the same colour - lemon ones were called Sun pops. He took one of each colour and at least ten of the Blood pops.

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. If they got bored they visited their older siblings and their friends in other compartments and met a bossy girl, Hermione, with a timid boy, Neville, looking for Trevor, Neville's toad. They just exited the compartment with Pansy's older brother, Philip, so they asked him if he could cast a point me spell for Neville.

At one point Ariel got tired of resting in his room, so he was wrapped around Harry's neck when they met Hermione and Neville. He figured it would be safer for Trevor to have an older student find the toad than risk Ariel eating him.

Hours later they put on their school robes and exited the train. They were escorted by Philip to a man that had to be at least part giant, called Hagrid. They split and sat in the boats that took them across the lake. 

Harry tried to convince Pansy to stand at the front part of the small boat, but she refused, so he challenged Draco to do it. By now Harry knew which buttons he had to press and Draco didn't disappoint as he stood up and turned away from Harry. 

Harry made him spread his arms while he held him around his waist, mimicking the scene from Titanic.

One muggleborn could be heard yelling “I’m flying, Jack!”

They had to sit down when they reached the cliff on which the Hogwarts castle stood. They passed through an opening hidden by ivy. The boats sailed through a dark tunnel underneath the castle to an underground harbour.

Hagrid made sure that no-one was left behind and lead them first outside and then up stone steps until they reached huge, oak front door of the castle. 

_I gotta give them points for dramatic flair._ Harry thought as Hagrid knocked three times.

The dramatic feeling was amplified when a tall, stern looking witch pushed the door wide open. She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall as she lead them through the Entrance Hall into a chamber into an adjoining chamber.

There she explained them a bit about the houses and instructed them to smarten themselves up while they waited to be sorted. 

Harry had a weird feeling that Godric and Chaos were the ones who came up with everything that happened after they stepped off the train. He couldn't wait to see how they'll be sorted - everyone who knew agreed that he should see it for himself.

He snorted when one kid said they'll have to wrestle a troll. Helga was the only one who would agree to something like that. No, it would be more in Ric’s style to use something harmless and Chaos would suggest an absurd method that would make kids laugh. They probably agreed on using an old boot that changed colors according to the house that was chosen for them.

He was brought out of his thoughts when some people in the back started screaming.

Harry quickly turned around and saw around twenty ghosts streaming through a wall as they were arguing. _They probably forgot that it was the start of a new school year._ Harry guessed when the ghost called Fat Friar correctly identified them as new students.

He was surprised to hear that the Friar was in Hufflepuff - he was sure that he was the one to insist upon giving Peeves another chance during the argument. Helga wasn't picky about who she taught, but after knowing her for as long as he remembered, he knew that Nik had a fair reason for nicknaming her Hel - she really wasn't the forgive and forget type of person.

Professor McGonagall soon came back and told them to form two lines - one for boys and one for girls. They walked out of the chamber and into the Great Hall. After almost reaching the High table, Professor McGonagall stopped, while the Head Boy and Head Girl lead the two lines of first years to separate ends of the High table.

A chair and a hat were placed right in the middle between the two groups, where McGonagall stood. _Well that's more like Ric than a troll._ Harry though as the hat moved and started to sing. He would place his money on Chaos being the one who came up with the singing part.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” said the Professor.

The Professor was calling names and the hat called out houses after either just few short moments or minutes on the child's head. He recognised some names that were called forward - Daphne was sorted to Slytherin, both Hermione and Neville to Gryffindor and Susan Bones, a friend of Daphne and Pansy, went to Hufflepuff.

Hat called out Slytherin the moment it touched Draco’s head and Theodore soon followed. Following the trend, Pansy was also sorted to wear green and silver.

“Potter, Harry!” called McGonagall.

He stepped forward and stopped by the professor. 

With a polite smile he spoke just loud enough to be heard by all of the teachers, but not by the students, “Excuse me, but my last name is Potter Nymphirose. I would appreciate it, if you would use the correct name.”

After saying what he wanted to say, he made his way to the stool, sat down and put the hat on his head.

 _'Ello mister Hat!_ he thought cheerfully. _Would you mind telling me your name?_

 _Hello to you too, young wizard!_ said the voice in his head. _You're one of the few who asked for my name and I shall answer like I did ever since I was named. My full name Deus de Machina of the Sorting Ceremony._

_And that was Nik._

Deus laughed at that _That's correct! It was indeed young Nikola who named me. Now enough of the chitchat - no matter how pleasant it is. We have a sorting to do._

_Where does Dumby want me to go? I would be most grateful if we could avoid me being sorted there._

_The headmaster wants you in Gryffindor. He told me to send the kid called Harry Potter there, but you provide me with a nice loophole, mister Nymphirose,_ yes Chaos definitely had a hand in creating this hat.

He felt the hat slip past his Occlumency shields and look through his memories. 

_Looks like you would make all of the founders proud, no matter where you go, but we need to narrow down the selection from “everywhere” to “there,”_ said the hat.

After looking through a few more memories Deus, de Machina of the Sorting Ceremony said _Gryffindor is out by default and I fear what would become of the current Hufflepuffs if they were to spend a prolonged amount of time in your presence._

Looks like Elise’s bias towards green and blue while selecting his wardrobe was well founded.

_Ravenclaws, I'm afraid, don't have anywhere near enough energy to keep you occupied… Yes, Slytherins would keep you on your toes - together with the rest of the school with how **someone** is meddling in everything._

Harry smirked _I'm in agreement._

 _Better be_ **SLYTHERIN!**

With a smile on his face Harry took Deus off, handed him to Professor McGonagall and walked over to the Slytherin table, where he sat next to Draco, who sat among the third and fourth years instead of the first years at the end of the table.

He noticed that the Great Hall was silent and he will forever cherish the look of pure shock on Dumbledore’s face. 

“I'm an idiot,” said Draco, drawing Harry's attention. “I should have guessed you're _the Harry Potter_ but what's done is done. Welcome to Slytherin, Harry.”

Well, that was unexpected to say the least. After getting to know the Malfoy heir he expected at least silent treatment for a week. 

Before he could answer McGonagall called another name and the sorting continued.

It was quickly over since there were only three more students: a girl he didn't know, the boy who was talking about a troll and Baise, who was last to be sorted.

As the Italian boy joined them at the Slytherin table, Professor put away Deus and the stool. Blaise wasn't even property seated when the headmaster started his speech. If it could be called such.

A look around the Slytherin table confirmed that many thought Dumbledore to be either mad or the bane of their existence. Or maybe both. 

But that didn't matter - food appeared on the table and there were many students he would enjoy talking to. 

Dinner was an enjoyable affair. The food tasted good and after everyone ate their share, older students proved themselves to be interesting conversationalists. Granted, there were some that wanted to talk about him being _Harry Freakin Potter_ but duckling behind Will provided him with a large amount of witty and sarcastic replies that got him on the good side of the students who appeared to have more influential members of Slytherin.

All of the sudden one of the fifth years gestured them to stop talking. He obviously noticed Harry's confusion since he told him, “most of the Gryffindors finished pigging out, so Dumby will finally dismiss us after mentioning the basic school rules. For some weird reason the passwords for the common rooms - all except Gryffindor - only start working after he shuts up.” 

If Harry wouldn't know that other kids can't talk to snakes, he would ask them why they didn't simply argue with the door in Parseltongue. That normally did the trick around anything that either Chaos or Ric had a hand in creating.

As it was, he didn't say anything and listened as Dumbledore baited Gryffindors to go and explore the third floor. On the headmaster's prompting, the students sang the Hogwarts song. The Slytherins didn't even open their mouths while Harry's eyebrow twitched.

They were soon dismissed and the fifth year that gestured them earlier introduced himself as Terence Higgs and told the first years to follow him and a girl that wore the same badge as him. Her name was Gemma Farley.

He and Draco joined the rest of the first years as they were lead in to the dungeons.

* * *

The night of September the first was the most surprising thing that Severus Snape experienced in the past decade. At least besides the miracle of some students handing in potions that didn't look like a sick troll brewed them. In some cases referring to failed potions as such would be an insult to trolls.

The first unusual event was seeing his godson talking with another boy. Normally he wouldn't give it a second thought, but the kid didn't look like any wizard or witch he knew and Dumbledore would stop offering everyone Lemon Drops before a Malfoy would be friendly with an unknown muggleborn.

Of course the boy had to end up being the Potter spawn. He honestly expected him to look a lot like his parents, but he was missing all of their features. He was able to recognise some of them, like the nose he obviously inherited from his maternal grandmother, but some, like his eyes, were left a mystery.

He observed the boy as he informed Minerva of having another last name. He didn't recognise the name, so he made a mental note to ask Lucius about it. He missed their August meeting because of Dumbledore, but he'll see the rest of the DE Elite in about two weeks anyway and Lucius will catch him up.

Harry’s sorting lasted about three minutes and Severus noticed the smirk on Harry's face before Deus called out Slytherin. He still had no idea who came up with the name, but it was as ridiculous as it was genius.

He observed Harry throughout the dinner.

He noticed that he was obviously raised with someone who made sure the kid had manners. He didn't even accidentally put his elbows on the table, and that was something Draco did constantly, despite being Narcissa's son.

The students that were socially on top of their year obviously liked him and he somehow picked out the ones with the best grades and talked with them the most. He had no idea how he did it, especially since no-one introduced themselves to him and thus didn’t give him any information on who they were.

He didn't stay after Dumbledore finished his speech. He had firsties to terrorise.

Oh who was he kidding. He couldn't wait to get to know his new snakes. He already knew about most of them since their parents could talk for hours about them, but since neither Crabbe nor Goyle made it to Slytherin, he had nothing to worry about. Except maybe Potter’s kid.

The Headmaster was always going on how he was spoiled left and right, but he knew better than to trust the old goat. It helped that Harry looked nothing like his parents, so he'll be able to build his opinion on the boy without prejudice. 

He arrived in the Slytherin common room before the first years - he was still grateful to the Bloody Baron for showing him many of the secret passages when he was still a student. Looking around the almost empty common room, he sighted at the knowledge that this night was the only time that Slytherins were the only students in the Slytherin common room. He wouldn't make the same assumption about older students’ rooms. 

He hid himself in a shadowy corner so the kids won't notice him right away. He cared for all of them but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy scaring them just because he could.

He observed Higgs and Farley as they lead the first years into the common room and explained the rules of their house, like first years having an unofficial earlier curfew, since they were most likely to get lost, and not getting caught when they break the school rules.

When he walked out of the shadows the moment Higgs told them his name and the position of the youngest Potions Master, he noticed that Harry was the only one that actually wasn't surprised by his appearance. The boy just raised an eyebrow at his theatrics, especially with how he was eying his robes.

Yes, Severus was pleased that someone appreciated the billowing of his robes that he perfected throughout the years.

He did the same welcome speech he did every year, subtly warning the new students that he'll quiz them by suggesting they read the first chapter of their books and not so subtly threatened them with room inspections. When he felt he scared them enough for the night he informed them of his office hours for first years being before lunch on Wednesday as well as his being available during breaks and that the first years’ health exams would be that Friday. 

He already put the notice with more information on the board next to the entrance to the common room, so all that was left was to tell them to go to bed and exit the room in all his dramatic glory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ps: this chapter is dedicated to DeathShipper - my dude, of you don't know who Nik is, I'm very disappointed :P


	6. First Potions lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to post this one today... Also I got myself the Slytherin edition of Chamber of Secrets ^^

When Professor Snape left the common room, Harry followed the other first years that were headed to their dorm room to get settled.

When he heard that Severus set the record for being the youngest individual with a Mastery not only in Potions but also in Dueling and Defence, he knew that War and Peace will want him as their Chosen one. The other two founders would want him too, but they made a rule of only picking one person per century and Chaos already had Harry while Rowena choose Luna. There was also the matter of Ric and Helga arguing over who gets a guy called Tom - he apparently made a bunch of Horcruxes so being Chosen by War would do him most good, but he was the Heir of Slytherin and had the Gift of Peace passed down to him. Parseltongue was the first gift Ric ever gave, so it only encompassed the affinity for Parselmagic that came with Parseltongue and it was for some weird reason hereditary.

Harry ended up sharing his room with Draco, Theodore and Blaise. He noticed that they were the only boys sorted to Slytherin, even if Chaos always spoke of having so many students in each year that he had to ask fourth years to help him look after the first years. That way strong friendships were formed and by the time the current fourth years graduated, the first years were old enough to take over their place in looking after the new students.

After putting away his items, setting an alarm and putting his textbooks together with a spiral bound notebook and writing utensils in his satchel for Monday, Harry showered, brushed his teeth and went to bed, closing the curtains around himself. Afterwards he took his electric violin out of his Null space, plugged in the headphones and started playing. 

He got carried away and only stopped when he saw the notification light on his phone blinking. He put the violin and the headphones away. The moment he saw Elise's goodnight text he remembered he promised that he'll contact her when he arrived at Hogwarts. 

He quickly texted her that he was sorted into Slytherin and that he has an awesome head of house. He put the phone away and went to sleep. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realised that for the duration of the school year, Professor Snape will be his guardian, just like his parents wanted.

* * * 

Despite staying up late last night, Harry was up and running before his roommates even got out of their beds. He already did his morning routine and he had read the textbooks during summer when Nik could help him with anything he didn't understand.

Other boys were awake, but didn’t feel like getting out of bed, so Harry whined until they did.

They somehow managed to convince Draco not to slick back his hair and were on their way to the Great Hall in less than half an hour. Harry guessed that if they had waited for the blond to do his hair, they would have missed breakfast and most of their first lesson.

A few moments after they left the common room, a fifth year girl that told them to call her Cupcake joined them. She pointed out little snakes carved in the wall that guided Slytherins to where they wanted to go, if they asked politely. It was a feature that Professor Snape had told her about when she got lost in her first year. 

She showed them how they worked, by tracing the shape of one with her finger and said the name of the room where she wanted to go - in this case the Great Hall. 

Cupcake warned them about the snakes having been there since the school was built and that some names changed throughout the years. It was better to ask the snakes to take you to the Professor for your next lesson than saying “The classroom where we have that lesson”.

They also learned that the schedules are the same every year - she mentioned something about the ghost teaching History. A few years back the Slytherins put together schedules for all years and Professors together with a map of every floor. They used to be stuck on a wall between the entrances to girls and boys dorms, but this summer someone took most of them down. The sixth years were in charge of replacing them, but it'll take time.

They talked with Cupcake throughout breakfast, when Professor Snape gave them their schedules.

“Awwww professor, we won't be seeing you until tomorrow evening! I’m free this morning, so can I join the firsties for potions?” the fifth year asked with a slight pout.

The death glare she received told the first years that this wasn't the first time this happened. 

Cupcake saying “As you wish,” combined with a grin, prompted another death glare upon them before the Professor continued giving out schedules. 

Breakfast period almost ended when Cupcake got tackled by another Slytherin girl. 

“Awwww I missed my morning dose of Sevvie!!” she whined as she looked at the schedule her friend held. “I hope you asked him if we can join the other years today.” she asked as she took a cookie. 

“I did, my dear Cookie, and we still got a no for an answer…” Cupcake pouted as she munched on her cupcake. Well there's a reason for their nicknames.

“I hoped that we would get a hot DADA professor, but it's Quirrell… He was cute while he taught Muggle studies, but a DADA prof can't be a nerdy cutie…”

Harry took that as his cue to get away from the two girls. He really didn't want to hear their top-best-looking-professors list.

The other first year boys followed him after they dragged Pansy and Millicent away from the table, since they didn't want them to be late on their first day just because some older years started gossiping.

Following the simple map on the backside of their schedule they quickly found their way to the correct classroom in the dungeons where they saw a Gryffindor girl - Hermione if Harry remembered correctly - already waiting for class to start. 

It turned out that they got away from Cupcake and Cookie just in time, because the warning bell chimed moments after they reached the classroom. The door opened and they took their seats. Since Hermione was the only Gryffindor present, she shared a table with Slytherins, who seated themselves in first two rows with three students on either side. Harry sat on the left with Pansy and Draco, while Hermione was on the right and sat with a girl called Tracey and Blaise.

They waited for ten minutes for the rest of the Gryffindors to arrive. In this time Tracey got Hermione to talk with her and Blaise soon joined the conversation - it looked like they were getting along splendidly. On the other side of the classroom Harry learned that Draco wants to be a Potion Master, just like his godfather, while Pansy was terrified of the class since her older brother was always telling her stories about how strict and terrifying Professor Snape is. Both boys were quick to reassure her, that she'll be fine - after all, she was a Slytherin while her brother was a Ravenclaw.

Soon a secondary bell rang and the doors slammed shut.

Severus started the class by taking a role call. He called Harry directly after Theo, only addressing him as Nymphirose. Harry gave the man a huge grin as he said “Here”. He had no idea what Severus was trying to do, but apparently he passed the first test.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

 _In terms of theatrics, he could give Chaos a run for his money_ Harry though as he listened to the Professor.

“Nymphirose! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Professor asked as he looked at Harry.

“Hölle auf Erden Dosis, Herr,”

At that Severus raised an eyebrow. 

“Correct, but in English we call it Draught of Living Death.”

Harry blushed - he was taken by surprise and instinctively answered in German.

“Let's try again. Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar? And I would appreciate if you would spare me from having to dust off my German,” he said in a dry voice, but Harry could see a spark of amusement in the Professor’s dark eyes.

“In the stomach of a goat, sir.”

“Last question. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“There's no difference sir. They're also known as Aconite, or Eisenhut, Wolfsbann and Aconitum in German,” Harry answered politely, but with a cheeky grin.

Severus awarded him twenty points, asked the class why they weren’t writing down the answers and started explaining the difference between methods used in brewing and how they affect the end result.

If you were reading between the lines, you could catch him warning the class, that he'll give them instructions with harmless modifications. Harry guessed that this was his way of figuring out who mindlessly followed the instructions and who used their brain.

Since it was a double block, Professor flicked his wand at the board and instructions for the Boils Cure and their homework assignment appeared. They were split in pairs - Harry was working with Neville.

The rest of the lesson was uneventful. Neville almost melted the cauldron, but Harry stopped him before he could make a fatal mistake. Well at least fatal for their grades and Harry suspected Professor Snape wouldn't simply forget about someone melting a cauldron on their first day. Helga will so fight Ric over who gets this man.

Harry and Neville, just like Draco and his partner, finished earlier than the others, so they bottled two samples of their potion and cleaned up before they carried the labeled vials to Severus’ table. 

The first few pairs that handed in a potion that would get at least an E were given permission to leave as soon as their work stations were clean. Harry didn't have to be told twice before he used one of Will’s chants to remove all traces of Boils Cure remains from the cauldron, without damaging said cauldron.

Since they were cleaning as they went, there wasn't much to do before Harry and Neville got to leave the dungeons.

Since Slytherins had History of Magic and Gryffindors Herbology they had to say goodbye when they reached the ground floor. At the last moment, Neville gathered his courage and asked Harry to help him with Potions class. It was only their first lesson, but the Gryffindor noticed that Harry knew what he was doing - especially when he noticed that Snape changed the cutting style in the instructions on purpose. 

Harry gladly agreed on it - Neville was nice and Harry wondered if he would let him turn Trevor into a turtle…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holle auf Erden = hell on Earth 
> 
> ^ It sounds a lot more dramatic than ''sleeping potion'' that the German version of the book uses xD


	7. History of Magic and other classes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that I can say about this chapter is that Harry is being Harry xD

On his way to his next class, he met the Ravenclaw house ghost that he easily recognised as Helena, Rowena's daughter. The moment he mentioned that he knows her mother - and proved such - the Gray Lady went from quiet to excited and started telling him all kinds of stories she witnessed in her life and death.

Sadly, Professor Binns turned out to be a lot less animated. 

After ten minutes of pure monotone boredom, Harry had enough. This wasn't History - History should be exciting, full of funny anecdotes and individuals who accomplished things that others thought impossible. It was a collection of tales, held together by facts and wonder. Every era had its ups and downs, a plethora of dates to memorize and events that shaped the world.

Binns started the lesson talking about some wizard from 17th century who couldn't swim. It really wasn't a good starting point for a lesson, so Harry raised his hand and asked if he could go to the bathroom. The permission was granted, even if he was addressed as Charlus - probably a grandfather somewhere down the line.

When he exited the classroom, he saw Helena talking with the Bloody Baron. It was obvious that she did most of the talking while he was content just with having her attention. Harry smiled at the sight, remembering the stories Rowena told him about her daughter and one of Chaos’ students.

Sadly he had a mission, that he couldn't afford to mess up.

“Sir Hywel, Lady Helena,” he nodded at each of them. He followed the plan he constructed in order to convince Helena to join Binns during the History lessons. 

The Baron quickly caught on what he was doing and assisted Harry in prompting Helena. He liked to see her happy and she always enjoyed helping her mother and the other founders with teaching the younger kids. 

Helena was at first indecisive, but when Hywel agreed with the child, she gave in. The Baron promised to wait for her as she followed young Harry into the classroom.

Most of the students were deep asleep so no-one noticed an additional ghost. Helena listened to Binns’ lecture for a bit, before she interrupted him. These kids just started their magical education and should be listening to tales of Merlin and Morgana, not about some boring, dusty old man who wasn't even important to the plot.

As soon as they heard a new voice speaking up, the Slytherins and Ravenclaws who weren't quite asleep yet looked up, just in time to hear the quiet house ghost, who rarely interacted with anyone, give Binns the tongue-lashing of his death. During her tirade he finally seemed to realise just how many students used his lessons as nap time. 

Helena officially took over the History of Magic class.

There wasn't much left of the lesson, but the time they did have was used as an introduction, where each student told Helena how much of wizarding history they know. She split them in groups where at least one student was raised in the traditional, wizarding way and one was a muggle raised child, and gave them the assignment to create a list of things they would like to learn and things they feel everyone should know about wizarding world.

She might be dead for almost a millennium, but she listened to students and teachers alike. She'll probably suggest that someone else comes in to teach the upper years, but for now, she could manage the first two or three years.

Overall, Helena's teaching was a success and many looked forward to the next lesson. 

The Slytherins were free until lunch, so they returned to the common room to switch the books in their bags. Harry was tired of sitting down, so he didn't join his yearmates when they decided to play some exploding snap. Instead he took Ariel outside. 

He totally missed some Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seventh years chilling in the common room with their Slytherin friends.

The house elves somehow knew he had a pet and sent appropriate food for Ariel to Harry's dorm room. Nobody said anything about him owning what appeared to be a blue snake - all of the Slytherins loved the little noodle and the students from other houses assumed that Harry's just wearing a necklace that looks like a snake. He didn't bother correcting them.

Harry spent his time playing outside before he went to the Great Hall for lunch. Afterwards he had transfiguration and charms with Hufflepuff, followed by astronomy with Ravenclaw.

They saw Professor McGonagall transform into a cat, but Harry wasn't impressed. When Nik got sick, he changed into various animal forms everytime he sneezed. _That_ was more like what Harry would call impressive.

Turning a matchstick into a needle by pointing at it with a wand wasn't Harry's cup of tea. He looked at his wand for a second, before he made up his mind and used it as a hair stick to tie his hair in a bun. With the wand out of the way, he picked up the matchstick and sent a bit of magic at it with the image of the matchstick turning silver, pointed and gaining a little loop at the end.

It worked perfectly, but the moment the matchstick became a needle, it reverted back to its original state. And then it turned back into a needle, just to go back to being a matchstick. Over and over again. This was becoming increasingly annoying.

He asked McGonagall for another matchstick.

When she actually looked at what's going on, she froze for a second, before she tried to ask Harry how he did this. Operative word being tried, for all that came out of her mouth was a string of stutter that reminded the Hufflepuffs of Professor Quirrell. 

Apparently matchsticks weren't supposed to do that. Especially when no-one was using magic on them.

She quickly conjured a glass box and levitated the Needle With Midlife Crisis in it. Dumbledore had to see this. She wanted to show him as soon as possible, but she couldn't leave the first years unattended.

She settled on asking Harry how he did it. He told her that he did everything as instructed, but she couldn't believe it - especially after she noticed him using his wand as a hair stick.

She gave Harry another matchstick and asked him to do the same as before, so he did it and got the same result, just this time he got to see even more shocked McGonagall. It looks like she wasn't used to seeing magic being cast without a wand.

He got another needle and was told to do the same again.

“With all due respect, but doing the same over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Well there are a few exceptions…” he trailed off but at that moment he realised what he did wrong.

He picked up the matchstick and instead of imagining it turning into a needle, he just visualised the end result.

This time the transformation was successful and permanent - at least until someone decided to transfigure it or Harry's spell broke. He earned Slytherin ten points for explaining what he did differently.

They were let out early, since McGonagall really wanted to go gush to Dumbledore about the Needle With Midlife Crisis.

* * * 

Charms class was taught by a Professor Harry suspected to be part goblin. This time it turned out that Harry had to imagine the process of a charm doing its job instead of only the end result. It didn't help that Draco thought that his annoyed look was funny.

Harry personally thought that the Professor falling off his stack of books, due to seeing Harry cast his charm without a wand, was funnier.

His last class was Astronomy and it turned out to be a lot like Geography. If it wasn't for Draco telling him about the Black family tradition of naming their children after stars, he would question the reasoning behind not having it just as an elective. If Rowena could force all the students to take lessons on how to write with a quill before starting the school year, just because she didn't feel like deciphering the hieroglyphs that students called handwriting, a member of Black family could make them study astronomy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw I named the Bloody Baron Hywel - I forgot why I did so, but a quick google search told me that it means "eminent" in Welsh xD Also it kinda suits him... Speaking of names, what do you guys think about naming the Basilisk ''Noodles'', ''Fluffy'' or ''Margaret''? xD


	8. So about possessing a Professor...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's interested in Harry's timetable:   
> http://www.muridae.co.uk/after_survivor/mastertimetable.pdf
> 
> Tbh some guy probably spent hella long time creating this madness & I feel like they should get some credit (even tho I have no idea who created this)

The next day the only new subject was Defence Against the Dark Arts, taught by Professor Quirrell. It would be a good introductory lesson, if the Professor wouldn't insist on stuttering all the time.

Harry noticed that even though the stutter was very convincing - and annoying - it sometimes disappeared when Quirrell started talking about a spell and he never stuttered during the incantation.

When the bell rang, Harry sighted and told his friends to go ahead. They gladly agreed, since no-one liked the overwhelming smell of garlic.

“I would give the stutter an eight. By the way, did you know that there are people called mediums in Asia? They're born with the ability to retain some autonomy while possessed and it prevents the decay that occurs when the body isn't controlled by its original spirit. When possessing anyone without that ability it's advised to pick an elderly person - there are almost no differences between the decay due to old age and decay that occurs during possession. It's just that the old age takes longer to happen...”

The Professor gave him a surprised look, that was followed by a disembodied voice casting a privacy spell. 

“Let me talk to the boy,” the voice said.

Quirrell actually stuttered this time, before he unwrapped the turban on his head and turned away from Harry.

“Well aren't you a smart cookie…” the face on the back of Professor's head noticed Harry's scar “For the saviour, you’re awfully knowledgeable about possession.”

“Saviour? I had no idea you were feeling alone… But you don't struck me as the type to listen to the Black Veil Brides…” that would be Severus’ music choice if Harry had to guess what his Professors listen to. He almost started giggling at the irony of Dumbledore listening to Motionless in White. Naaah the man probably had Nickleback playing on repeat...

Lord Voldemort had no idea what Harry was referencing, but the boy obviously didn't know what happened when he was a baby. So he told him to sit down, because it's story time.

He set to explain the boy why he wanted to kill him, but then he realised that the child probably doesn't even know about that little detail.

“Do you know who I am?” he started.

“No, but my first guess would be 'a massive idiot’ followed by 'an imbecile’,” Harry wasn't holding back any of the punches “I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would first make a Horcrux and then…”

Just as the Dark Lord came out of his stupor and choked out “How do you know about Horcruxes?!” Harry came to the conclusion that the man in front of him obviously made more than one and yelled “You fucking moron!” while hitting himself in the face with his palm.

Since Harry was a polite child, he answered the question with “Death told me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yea, she was complaining… Ohhhhh so you're the Tom that everyone was bickering about!” this didn't seem to ring any bells, so Harry elaborated “You know, the one that was bloody brilliant but didn't read the fine print on the Horcruxes and lost most of his sanity and humanity… Magic was surprised you could still cast spells even after making the fifth one - those that attempted making Horcruxes mostly lost all of their magic after the first one…”

Harry could see how the face - even if badly disfigured - realised what he has done. Tom noticed after creating the diary that wandless magic wasn't as easy as it used to be, but he thought it was because he was getting older and he didn't know any adults that could cast without a wand. In his madness he didn't notice that the only spells he could perform were the unforgivables, since they only needed strong rage.

“What have I done?” he needed to fix this. Being close to one of his Horcruxes, the diadem hidden in the room of requirements, already helped him think more clearly. 

“Do you think Quirrell could last until Yule holidays? Uncle Ric and Aunt Helga will be able to patch you up. If you collect your Horcruxes, the decay should slow down…”

“It'll be a close call. First I planned on drinking unicorn blood, but now I see that it's not worth it.”

They were interrupted by the bell for the start of the next lesson. Tom made Quirrell write Harry a pass and told him of the shortest way to the History classroom.

He forgot to mention the Philosopher's stone being hidden in school.

Helena wasn't happy with her favourite student interrupting her lesson, but he had a pass from a Professor, so she only warned him not to make a habit of being late.

After History Harry was free for the day - somehow Mondays had twice as many lessons as other days while he had Fridays off. Older students told him that otherwise Professors would need time turners. 

Many NEWT level students asked the Professors of core subjects if they could take over first or second year students, since the Professors taught eight periods straight every day with only two or three free blocks per week. Dumbledore forbid them from doing so, but they banded together and bullied the Professors into letting them help with grading the first and second years assignments. 

Since Harry had too much time he went to his dorm, where he put away his satchel, took Ariel and the piece of parchment his father left him and went outside. He started walking around the lake and when he felt that he was far enough from the castle, he sat down and started examining the parchment.

“Open sesame!” he tried after a series of failed attempts, this time sending a spark of magic to it by tapping it with his finger.

Writing appeared on the parchment, saying:

_Mr Moony is over the moon to meet the Prongslet._

_Mr Prongs agrees with Mr Moony, and would request his dashing son to solemnly swear he's up to no good._

_Mr Padfoot sends his godfatherly regards and reminds the young Prongslet not to forget to manage his mischief._

_Mr Wormtail -_

Before Mr Wormtail could say anything, the ink from the lines written by the previous three attacked his name and left a black blob of ink where his name used to be.

Harry guessed that Wormtail had to be the guy who betrayed his parents. Prongs was obviously his father, Moony was probably the werewolf, since the guy had the most wolfish name imaginable, and Padfoot was the other guy that was listed as a possible guardian.

Remembering what the parchment said, he figured out what the activation and deactivation phrases were and solemnly swore he's up to no good.

He’d had a feeling that the map would be something special, but this was more than he expected. Not only was this a complete map of Hogwarts with numerous secret passages, it also showed where everyone was. 

He could see Severus in a classroom, teaching, Filch patrolling the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor and he even found himself on the map. He noticed the rest of the first years spending their free time either in their dorms and common rooms, or in the library - those were mostly Ravenclaws. Neville’s dot looked like he was looking for Trevor again. Harry should really ask him about turning that toad into a turtle.

He played around with the map, which told him about its other features like highlighting the dot that showed the specific person you were looking for. Just for fun he used that feature to find Professor Quirrell, who was, like the rest of Harry's Professors, teaching some class. He saw Tom’s name written over it and by tapping the dot, the map expanded, so he could read Tom’s full name, next to which it was noted that he was also known as Lord Voldemort. 

The name was ridiculous. The guy was walking around calling himself “flight from Death” - he was afraid of a girl that was barely taller than Harry! Death might look and ~~often~~ occasionally act like your typical scary Goth Lolita, but she's just the sweetest. Bad at making friends, very awkward and always looks like she hates everyone, but sweet nonetheless - just like her pet lynx… Ok Tom might have a valid reason to be afraid of her…

Harry cleared the map by saying “Mischief managed” and ran off to explore the area surrounding the castle.

Luckily he had an alarm set on his phone, so he was only an hour late for dinner.

When he wolfed down as much food as he could without breaking any of the etiquette drummed in him, he went back to the Slytherin common room, where his classmates were working on their homework. This time he noticed that at least half of the older students were Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws. He ignored them and joined other first years. He finished all of his essays at the same time as the others, mostly because they spent a long time first staring at Harry's textbooks floating around him and then poking at them.

After finishing their homework, they all played various games. Harry excused himself early to play on violin and the others convinced him to leave Ariel with them - many of them wanted a pet, but Millicient was the only one who owned one - a cute kitten that she called Mr Snuffles. 

Harry was the only one who was not bitten, scratched or otherwise ~~maimed~~ attacked by Mr Snuffles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where Harry says "I had no idea you were feeling alone," he's referencing this song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT65afznUoA
> 
> Fun fact: Mr Snuffles wasn't the cats original name, but than I accidentally named a house elf that...


	9. Meeting the Merfolk and brooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me this morning: Oh I forgot to post chapter 9! I'l do it when I get from school...  
> Also me: *Plays Pokemon for hours*
> 
> I would blame it on Zubats, but after reading a Tom x Harry fic where Harry calls Tom a Zubat... *sets a cute Golbat fanart for background*

The following days were pretty much a repeat of what happened the days before - wake up, wake up Draco, breakfast, classes, drag a random classmate - mostly Daco - around the castle, exploring every nook and cranny, homework, violin, bedtime. Not necessarily in this order.

Harry was getting annoyed by only being able to play on the electric violin, since there was just so much to do and explore and he didn't want to disturb his dorm mates by playing acoustic at either unholy early hours or while his friends were still busy with homework. So on Friday morning, he got ready quietly as not to accidentally wake up Theo - the other two could sleep through nukes. 

He tied up his hair by using his wand as a hair stick - he grew fond of the style - and gently wrapped the sleeping Ariel around his neck. He put his cellphone in a pocket and made his way to the Great Hall, where he ate breakfast before going outside. 

He found a perfect spot next to the lake, one that you couldn't see from the castle due to the strategic placement of a tree that provided shade during warm days. He took out his violin and started to play.

It didn't take long before two mermaids and four mermen swam to the surface to listen. They didn't dare to come close, because they saw Ariel flying around. Despite his young age, Ariel could be quite terrifying if he felt like doing so. 

When Harry noticed the merfolk he wanted to talk with them, but his Mermish was limited to “Please don't eat me”. He figured it couldn't hurt to try, so he said the words that saved Will’s skin more times than anyone bothered to count, but it ended up sounding like a question. 

The merman that heard him laughed and moved a little closer. “I believe this should be our line,” he said in English as he looked at Ariel. Harry turned his head to the side like an owl and guaranteed them that Ariel is harmless. For that he got gently slapped with said dragon’s tail. “Relatively harmless,” he corrected himself and sat down at the edge of the lake.

The merman introduced himself as Aryun and swam close enough so he could sit on the floor without being totally underwater. Other merfolk followed.

Harry didn't know how long he stayed there, chatting with while Auryn translated. Many of the young merfolk understood English, but had a hard time talking in it. He taught Harry how to produce Mermish sounds without hurting his vocal cords so he could call his new friends by their names, since not many had names like Auryn that sounded the same in English and Mermish.

Ariel got tired of flying and walking around, so he plopped down on Harry's head. He understood what the “fish people” were saying, but needed Harry to translate what he said to them.

Sadly the merfolk had to say goodbye to their favourite human (“The only human you know,” “you're right, the Headmaster doesn't quite count as one”), because said human was hungry. 

He got back to the castle just in time to join Cupcake and Cookie on their way to the Slytherin table, where the three of them sat with the rest of the first years. It turned out that Philip, Pansy's brother, made it onto C&C’s list of the most desirable men at Hogwarts. No-one was surprised that the list started with Professor Snape (“A broken nose can be ignored, but lack of brains can't”).

Harry was loading his plate with food, when Draco mentioned flying lessons. He was practically radiating excitement, while Harry would have to try really hard to care less.

“But Harryyyy~~! We get to _fly_! And with broomsticks! I can't wait till next year when I'll be allowed to have my own broom!”

“I really don't see what's so great about riding a piece of wood, Draco.” C&C found this sentence, for some unimaginable reason, very funny.

When Draco suggested that Harry should spend the winter holidays at Malfoy Manor so he could try riding his broom, the two girls lost all restraint and laughed for all they were worth. After one of them calmed down enough to talk, she asked Pansy if Philip would mind if she borrowed his broom and cracked up again.

The firsties wisely decided to ignore them and headed off to the infirmary for their health check. Professor Snape was already waiting there with Madam Pomfrey. They were all examined and deemed perfectly fine. Pomfrey told Harry to eat more since his weight was barely on the healthy side. His classmates laughed at that - Harry ate more than any of them and it didn't look like this was a new development. He just spent most of his energy and tended be late for meals when he was too absorbed in whatever he was doing.

Harry of course used the opportunity to ask if they could get cherry puffs for breakfast - Professor Snape gave him an unimpressed look.

* * *

Days passed by and suddenly it was Thursday afternoon and the Slytherins gathered at the quidditch field. They had flying lessons with the Gryffindors and somehow Hermione and Neville found themselves at the Slytherins’ side. They only shared Potions and DADA, but Hermione always sat next to Blaise and Harry encouraged Neville to join him whenever they shared a class. Draco thought it weird that Harry somehow obliterated the separations by houses in every class without even trying - and no-one tried to stop him, since they were all glad to be able to still hang out with their childhood friends.

Well there were some individuals who despised that, but Draco had no idea if Harry even realized that. His friend was always smiling and full of energy. Well, at least when he wasn't annoyed by something.

Just like he was currently getting annoyed by a Weasley. There were four of them at Hogwarts this year, but Harry only had a problem with the youngest. The oldest one around, Percy, pretty much left you alone as long as you weren't breaking the school rules while the twins got along with anyone who _did_ break rules - and Harry was friends with all three of them. Draco tried to stay away from them due to the feud between the Malfoy and Weasley families, but Charlie, the second oldest son, works with dragons. And, as the twins quickly learned, Draco _loved_ dragons.

The fact made Harry giggle, but who doesn't love dragons? Especially if your parents name you Draconis…

So the youngest Weasley at Hogwarts decided that flying lessons are the prime time for picking on your housemates for having friends in other houses. 

Draco knew Harry well enough to know that Weasley just signed up for seven years of hell. He observed Harry going from agitated to calm and suddenly realised that there had to be a reason for Harry being a Slytherin beyond him being a Parselmouth.

The lessons went well. At least as well as they could with adding Harry to the mix… They were told to say ”up” so the brooms would lift in their hands and for most part they did. For some the brooms moved just a little bit, or dropped back to the ground after hovering for a bit. Weasley got hit in the nose by his - Draco would suspect Harry to have a part in this, but his friend had a totally different problem. 

The broom somehow picked up on Harry's distaste for the cliche of flying on a broom. At first it shot up just like Draco's, but instead of hitting his palm, it stopped just out of Harry's grasp and shot forward. It flew to the other side of the quidditch field, before it fell on the ground. At first they thought it was a malfunctioning broom, but then the same happened with another broom - just that this one ended up catching fire in its hurry to escape Harry.

‘’Looks like the feelings are mutual,’’ he commented.

Madam Hooch determined that it would be for the best if Harry stayed on the ground for the time being.

And he did for most of the lesson. At one point Neville's broom tried to kick him off, so Harry floated up and stabilised his friend so he could safely land. When they were safely back on the ground, Harry asked Neville if he would let him turn Trevor into a turtle. The shy Gryffindor let out a quiet “no,” fully expecting to be ignored, but Harry just pouted for a bit before accepting Neville’s answer with a smile.

Afterwards the Slytherins would ask Harry how he managed to fly without a broom, but his answer of “I flew up and let him hold on until we got back on the ground,” didn't help them at all. In the end they settled on believing Harry subconsciously used a Levitation charm - afterall he did have some weird affinity for making items float around him.

After the lessons ended, the Slytherins walked to the castle, but were stopped midway by Weasley laughing at Harry for not being able to ride a broom. Draco subconsciously took a step back when he looked at Harry, who walked towards Weasley and stopped when he was only centimetres away from his face.

“Sunday, at midnight. The broom shed,” he turned around, before looking at Weasley over his shoulder “And bring your Second. You're going to need them,” he added and walked away.

With that Harry continued his way to the castle, looking like the picture of innocence. The rest of the Slytherins quickly followed him.

Once safety back in their common room, Millicent asked, “Did you really challenge Weasley for a duel at midnight? Don't you know Professor Snape would have _all_ of us scrubbing cauldrons for months if you get caught?!!” 

Harry picked up Mr Snuffles and started petting him like Don Vito in Godfather. Mr Snuffles played his part perfectly.

“Millie sweetie, what are you talking about?” Harry put on his confused face and used a voice people use while speaking to little children “I never said I'm meeting him nor did I say it's a duel.”

It took some a bit longer than the others to figure out what Harry just did, but before long they were all laughing. Weasley would spend a month in detention.

Well that's if he gets caught, but with what Harry had planned, Weasley would run inside screaming so loud it would wake the dead.

Harry started making arrangements that very day.

* * *

On Sunday Harry missed dinner. Most of the school didn’t notice and those who didn’t think anything of it - he probably just took one of his walks. 

That night Harry could be seen in the common room sitting next to the window, that was actually just a magical membrane. You could walk through it and go for a swim, but only current Hogwarts staff and Slytherin students can go back in. The other students mostly already went to their rooms and those that stayed either fell asleep on the couches or ignored him after threatening to skin him alive if he wakes up their sleeping friends. Harry checked the time. Eleven thirty. Perfect. He put up the privacy spells that cut him off the common room and took out his violin. 

After playing for a minute or so, a merman appeared in front of the window. It was Auryn.

“Is everything ready?” asked Harry.

“Yes - Sushi gladly agreed to it. That boy will be washing out the ink for a week.”

Harry opened the Marauder's map. “He just left the Gryffindor common room and he brought a friend with him,” he noticed a dot that read Dudley Dursley follow Weasley. They will both have the pleasure of testing the booby traps that Harry can trigger from the safety of the Slytherin common room.

Harry kept Auryn updated on their movements so that the merman could tell his friends what to do. He sent the spiders on a walk around the lake the moment he heard Harry's signal. The second signal would be the Merfolk’s cue to rise from the water and screech Schubert's Erlkonig at the Gryffindors. Somehow they were able to hear the violin all across the lake whenever Harry played next to it. Harry suspected some of the runes on his violin.

At first Harry wanted to only summon a bunch of harmless snakes and scare Weasley by having them follow him, but then he overheard that the youngest Weasley son was afraid of spiders and added them to the dance routine that would accompany the Merfolk’s ‘song’ that will end with the Giant Squid drenching Weasley in ink. Good thing that an Acromantula was indebted to him for stopping Ariel from eating its offspring.

Two minutes to midnight everything was in place and Harry started playing The Trooper. At midnight Weasley started screaming, followed by Dursley. Two minutes past midnight both Gryffindors were running back to the castle. Three minutes past midnight the first booby trap triggered and rubber snakes and spiders rained on Weasley, who panicked and ran in the opposite direction of the Gryffindor tower. Dursley obviously wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, since he followed his friend like a blind puppy.

Harry laughed and triggered the harmless traps that only caused sounds of minor explosions all over the castle. That got the heads of houses out of their personal quarters. He carefully lead them to where Weasley was running around like a headless chicken and screamed for all he was worth. It appeared that the rubber spiders that Nik sent to him came equipped with a piece of magic that made them follow the one who they saw the moment they were triggered and would later disintegrate.

Harry thanked Auryn, cancelled the privacy spell and went to bed with a smile on his face.

* * * 

During Potions on Monday Severus stopped by Harry and as he looked into his cauldron, he whispered just loud enough for Harry to hear to meet him on Wednesday during the Professor's office hours.

As he dropped off his bottled potion at the Professor’s desk Weasley confronted him, calling him a coward for not showing up last night. He was probably hoping to get Harry in trouble.

“Excuse me? I wasn't aware that I should be anywhere but in my dorm or maybe the common room during the night,” he put up his best confused and innocent face despite the fact that he was outside after curfew on more nights than not. Elise always said 'If I wouldn't know you, I would believe you’ when he used that expression. He guessed that Professor Snape shared the sentiment, but he still sided with his Slytherins and added another detention for Weasley.

Harry could swear he saw mirth in his Professor's eyes.

After History of Magic, Harry ran into Professor Quirrell, who put up a muffliato spell around them before congratulating him for his first Slytherin scheme. Since that made it obvious that he knew Harry had something to do with it and wasn't about to get him in trouble, Harry told him how he simply asked the merfolk to get the squid, Sushi, to ink Weasley, scare the daylights out of him and his friend and set timed booby traps around the school. He didn't mention either the map nor having complete control over the traps. Tom laughed, but he was too weak to talk, so Quirrell had to do most of it.

He mentioned how Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's stone in the third floor corridor. Before he could explain the uses of the stone, Harry laughed.

“You guys still believe that? I can't believe no-one noticed the prank…”

Quirrell was confused.

“There’s no such thing as a Philosopher's stone. The stone that Dumbledore has is probably the stale blood replenishing potion that Nik transfigured into a rock when his apprentice wanted to see it.”

That didn't make the confusion go away, but Harry promised that everything would make sense when Tom’s soul would get patched up during Yule.

Chaos already promised to bring Will to Hogwarts so he could open a portal to Avalon for the DADA and Potions Professors. Apparently Helga and Ric finally agreed on who gets whom. As they shook hands, Fate and Death could be seen giggling while Magic was hitting his head against the nearest tree.

Harry redirected the conversation to the topic of using various charms during duels and Quirrell ended up spending the lunch period supervising Harry as he tried to cast some of the spells he found in the books from the Slytherin common room.

On Wednesday Harry explained the prank to Professor Snape and was awarded twenty points for asking merfolk for help, not breaking the school rules by staying in the common room and for ingenious traps. When Weasley and Dursley accused Harry of also being involved in what happened that night, there was no proof. The rubber spiders all turned to ash just moments before the Professors appeared and Severus was dying to know how Harry did it. Harry was amazed at how similar Severus and Tom were in that regard.

Harry took the last rubber spider he had from his robe pocket and said “Tanz”. The spider started to move across the desk where Harry put it and after a minute it dissolved to dust.

“A gift from Uncle Nik and Uncle Will,” he explained. 

They still had some time before lunch, so Harry asked Severus about something Potions related he found in a book. Severus explained the part that Harry didn't understand and was met with another question that resulted in Severus explaining theory that he normally taught to third years.

All in all, Harry deemed the prank and its aftermath a success.


	10. This is Halloween Halloween HALLOWEEN!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I finally decided on who to ship Harry with... Should I tag it or wait until we're all so far into the story that you can't run away and send me to a therapist for it...
> 
> Well lets see if you can guess who it'll be!
> 
> Hints: He's from another fandom and connected to fire ;)

Between classes, Homework, exploring, getting Weasley and what appeared to be his only friend in trouble, and asking questions as well as doing things that left all Professors - with the exception of Severus, Tom and Quirrell who quickly realised it was best to just go with everything the kid throws at them - either stuttering or nursing a headache, time passed quickly and the castle was soon decorated for Halloween.

Harry had _Survive the Night_ stuck in his head from the moment he woke up on the morning of Samhain. So he had it playing in the background while going about his morning routine, getting the song stuck in his dorm mates’ heads. The earworm spread to the girls in his year and Harry got an idea for a school wide prank.

So before breakfast one could see two sixth year Hufflepuffs, a seventh year Ravenclaw, two third year Gryffindors, Cupcake, Cookie and Harry putting together a Halloween playlist. The sixth and seventh years enchanted a bunch of pebbles to act like speakers, the Weasley twins determined the best spots to hide the pebbles and C&C had their first period off so they could place them in the hallways while the twins triggered a… distraction. 

Harry owned one of those phone straps that you plug into the earphones exit, so they enchanted that to act like a microphone which would only transmit the songs without any outside noise.

After they had everything ready, they headed off for breakfast.

Harry waited for the first period to end before he started the playlist they put together, so that C&C would have enough time to spread the pebbles everywhere. The moment the bell went off, Harry pressed the play button. 

At first no-one knew what was going on, but the moment the lyrics started many of the muggle raised kids recognised the song. Professor Quirrell laughed and sent them on their merry way, because “This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween”. When Harry passed him, he whispered “Ten points to Slytherin if you play _iNSaNiTY_ ”.

C&C had left the pebbles in every corridor and even threw some of them outside. The third years who had Herbology at that time would swear that they heard Hagrid scream in fright. 

During Potions Severus left a message on Harry’s desk to play Wolf in Sheep's Clothing or face a detention. Harry had a feeling that Severus and Tom knew each other from before Tom decided to possess a random Professor and were using Harry as their messenger boy. He might end up opening a betting pool on when one of them shows up with a radio on his shoulder and tries to serenade the other.

During Herbology Professor Sprout decided to change up the curriculum and show them plants that respond well to music.

Many were questioning the Weasley twins on how they came up with the prank, yet only a few believed them when they said that they only had a small part in the final production. The first year Slytherins were 100% sure who came up with the prank when Survive the Night played during lunch.

Knowing that some kids preferred to skip the Halloween feast, Professor Flitwick waited for the current song to end before he stood in front of the high table and addressed the students. It seemed that the one responsible for picking the songs was in the Hall, since the music stopped. The Professor awarded twenty house points for spellwork and ingenuity used to every individual who participated in the prank and when he saw that all houses gained some, he congratulated their team work. 

After that he got a serious expression “Even if this was a wonderful prank that made us all enjoy this day more, I must do the Professor's duty and tell you that I'm deeply disappointed,” after a moment of silence he continued his sentence “That you haven't played _Spooky Scary Skeletons_ yet!”

The Great Hall cheered and the requested song was played while McGonagall and Flitwick conjured dancing skeletons that resembled the staff members.

The rest of the day passed peacefully and Dumbledore spent the night giving himself a headache trying to figure out why no-one but the more reckless Gryffindors went to the forbidden corridor.

He wanted Harry to explore it and realise how useful his classes were. Facing off with Voldemort would also help him see that the Dark Lord was but a man. 

Maybe Harry just didn’t notice that there’s a dangerous and valuable artefact hidden in the room. He will have to ask Ron and that delightful boy he’s hanging out with to talk about Nicholas Flamel & the Cerberus on the third floor.

Dudley was Harry’s cousin - they were bound to be the best of friends. 

Originally Dumbledore planned on the blond boy not having magic and make Harry’s life miserable for it, but when a letter confirming an enrolment was sent from Number 4 Privet Drive the Headmaster knew that fate was still at his side. When the summer started, he plans on summoning both boys to his office and tell them that he “just learned they’re related” and suggest that Harry spend at least a week with his cousin. He couldn’t use Petunia to make Harry’s life outside of Hogwarts miserable - the woman learned of her sister’s death less than half a year ago and wouldn’t be able to feel resentment towards a magical child who couldn’t do magic during summer. 

No, the headmaster’s new plan was to make Harry yearn for biological family and spend a few tense weeks each summer with his Aunt and cousin. If everything goes as planned Harry would have grown attached to them by the time for Voldemort's return. Then the child should be willing to sacrifice himself for the Greater Good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ps: Hogwarts is probably the only high school where phones aren't forbidden... Tho what stage of schooling is Hogwarts anyway? You're there for 7 years so it's probably two stages in one, but I have no idea how British schools work... Eh who cares, Harry can have his phone on the desk next to him & there's no rule saying he shouldn't xD


	11. It's not a kidnapping if it was consensual

November flashed by and they were soon asked whether they would spend the holidays at Hogwarts. The older Slytherins ~~ordered~~ asked the younger years to go home - Severus only had to stay in school if there were Slytherins staying and the entire house was determined to make sure their favourite Professor got some time off.

Dumbledore tried to make Harry hang out with Dudley by asking the Professors to pair the Slytherins with Gryffindors. He hoped that the boys would start talking when they finish the set task or even start hanging out outside of classes like Harry started spending time with Neville after their first week. Headmaster’s plan was unsuccessful and the man doubted that Harry's guardians would let him spend the summer holidays with Dudley if this continued. He’d have to carefully plan when and how he tells Harry of his remaining family. The Headmaster decided it was time to let a certain Weasley overhear him talking about “protecting the valuable item that would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands”. He already knew that the stone didn’t work - he tried creating the Elixir of Life not long after he stole it from his old master, but failed. He also tried to make gold, but iron stayed iron, no matter what he did with it and the stone. He didn’t dare asking the Flamels about the stone as they didn’t show signs of not having it and the Elixir. At first he suspected them having a good supply of it, but after years of them still being alive he started having doubts. Luckily about a decade ago the sightings of either Flamel stopped and people forgot about them. Dumbledore believed that he was the only one who knew that they most likely finally ran out of their supply.

The same day as they were asked about staying over the holidays, representatives of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin gathered and drew pieces of paper from a hat to determine what each house was responsible for in preparation for their Yule party. Slytherin was tasked with getting food while Hufflepuff would provide space and puppy-eye Severus into making them a batch or two of hangover cures. Ravenclaws were charged with blacklisting those that would get in a fight with the rest or caused trouble since the last party and thus will not be informed of nor be welcome at the party. They also selected those from Gryffindor that could join without causing problems.

They knew that in the past all four houses participated in organising the “secret” party, but with how Dumbledore ran the school they had no choice but to blacklist so many Gryffs that it ended up being easier to only let in a select few. They knew that the Gryffindors had their own party due to the amount of hangovers found at their table every year since they obviously didn't have a supply of hangover cures. 

After dinner the night before the train left the Slytherins made their way to the Hufflepuff common room in small groups. The party was PG13 and alcohol free until half an hour before curfew - as that time the first three years were sent off to the Slytherin common room since it was the closest one. The upper years that didn’t feel like partying walked them back - there was a group of fourth years assigned to escort the kids back before returning to the party if no-one volunteered to do so.

Despite the no-alcohol rule not being in effect anymore, the upper years that stayed at the party only changed the music and put the alcoholic beverages on the table that served as a bar when the younger kids left and put off the heavy drinking until midnight - the unofficial time when everyone but those who wanted to get drunk out of their minds left for their dorm rooms.

The younger years didn’t mind - they had the entire common room for themselves. The Slytherin upper years had asked for the common rooms to turn on the “Yule mode” before the party and the kids were greeted by the sight of common room devoid of all furniture except the soft futons covering the floor, together with blankets and pillows. There was a table running from the entrance to the common room to the staircase leading to the dorm rooms, filled with cups of hot cocoa and plates of cookies.

Next day during breakfast the tables were mostly filled with those that were too young to drink or just didn't feel like doing so. By the time to board the train, the only ones showing signs of hangovers were the those banned from the party in Hufflepuff house. When Quirrell informed his master of this phenomena, Tom guessed that Severus was still brewing the Hangover potion he created as a student, even years after all of his friends graduated. No wonder that the Slytherins basically worshipped the man.

The train left and the Professors were free to pack their bags and spend the holidays as they pleased. Out of the four heads of houses, only Severus and Pomona were free to go - they both knew that Snakes took many Puffs in as their own and that Slytherins whose home situations were less than ideal spent their holidays with their friends whose parents didn’t mind hosting them over the school break, even if they were from other houses. Every Slytherin and a lot of Hufflepuffs knew about that, but no-one ever mentioned it outside of the common rooms out of fear of Dumbledore learning of their system and forbidding them from doing so with either school rules or outright laws - many had asked to stay at Hogwarts during summer and they were all refused despite the castle having enough room to host multiple families at once.

Chaos once told Harry it was a protective measure in case of Muggles ever learning of the magical world and would once again start the witch hunts. During the time the Hogwarts was built, the Muggles had a tendency to burn anyone they suspected of having magic - young witches and wizards were afraid of using their powers and many of them turned into obscurials. The founding of Hogwarts cut the number of obscurials drastically as they were able to offer them a safe place to practice magic without fear of being caught. After the founders learned of their Powers of Chaos, Order, Peace and War, Magic himself erected the wards that protect the school, so no muggle weapon could be used to cause harm to anyone inside the wards. For centuries witches, wizards and magical creatures that didn’t have a safe place lived at Hogwarts - humans tended to move out when they felt it as safe enough to stand on their own two feet while the descendants of the magical creatures still reside in the Forbidden Forest.

A few generations later, Magic created a pen that would record the birth of every magical child - in the beginning they could find all of them relatively easily since their parents also had magic, but worried parents wished that their children would be born without magic and thus be safe from anyone witnessing the accidental magic. With enough witches and wizards wishing the same thing, the magic bended to their will and so the first squib sons and daughters were born and never told of the magic that their parents sacrificed for their safety. But they still carried the magic in their genes and decades later, when the magical community forgot about the squibs that got to live in blissful ignorance, muggleborns were thought to be born from non-magical parents even if they were only the result of magic returning to their lines. After all, no spell can last forever.

* * *

Harry told Quirrell that Severus will join them for at least a few days, but they both forgot to inform the Potions Master of this.

So Severus didn't expect two unknown men appearing in front of his door just moments after the students boarded the train. One of them wore a green cape, pinned on the side, completely covering his left arm while the other one had a red leather jacket. Severus’ instincts started kicking in with a fight or flight response when he couldn’t see their wands.

“You're Severus, right?” said the one wearing the cape.

Severus already had his wand in his hand and was aiming directly at the two men. Sectumsempra would hit them both and give him enough time to cast a patronus and call for help if they turned out to be too much for him to handle.

The one wearing the jacket glared at his friend, said “Sal, you're scaring the child,” before he turned to Severus and started making weird sounds, similar to bird's song, that somehow caused Severus to relax fully and put the potential danger on hold. It totally overwrote his priorities and he lowered his wand.

Neither of the two men had a wand in their hands, but Severus knew they were powerful. With what the taller man did, they could disarm and bind Severus without much resistance, but they just entered his quarters and asked him if he had his bags packed for Yule holidays.

“Ric, is it just me, or did the brat forget to bring him up to speed?” 

Severus had a weird feeling that he knew exactly who this brat was.

The man took a deep breath and rapidly said “Ok long story short, I'm Peace, call me Ric. This old man here is Chaos. Only I can call him Sal. We're two of the OP forces that prance around and make the world go around. After years of bickering it was decided that I can choose you as one of my own while Helga gets to keep Tom. Any questions?” 

There were many, but there was one that Severus desperately wanted an answer for.

Seeing the question and hope in Severus’ dark eyes, Chaos said “Yes, the Dark Lord Tom. Helga is going to chose him after she and Ric put his soul back together.”

Severus asked when he could see his old school friend again. Ric and Sal already had an answer for him - right then Tom was too weak to interact with anyone and the procedure for fixing his split soul would leave the man unconscious for a day or two, but afterwards he'll be up and about in no time.

Severus hooked his bag on his shoulder and accepted the offer.

* * *

While Chaos and Peace convinced Severus to let them kidnap him, Helga and Will found Quirrell, who was already waiting for them. He had the Diadem and Diary Horcruxes with him, but he informed Helga that there are still three other items.

She just waved him off and said that as long as they have Tom and the biggest piece of his soul, the others would find their way back when they’d start to patch him up.

If Tom were strong enough, he would cause Will a headache with all the questions about the nature of his portals, but as it was, he couldn't even respond to him saying that the Diadem suited Lady Ravenclaw better.

He already sent Dumbledore a note about feeling under the weather so his absence wouldn't be noticed for at least a day or two.

The portal lead directly to the room at the manor where Helga and Elise were waiting to start patching up Tom’s soul without killing Quirrell. Ric, Chaos and Severus landed outside of the manor. Ric went directly to where Helga, Will and Tom were to help with the healing process.

Chaos lead Severus to meet Nik. 

When Severus saw Nik’s house, he felt like he just encountered a sentient version of the Burrow. Somehow this one managed to look even less stable. He raised an eyebrow when they stopped a few meters from the house and Chaos started throwing pebbles at the windows. Apparently the house had decided to do away with doors and windows on the ground floor the moment the first snow fell. When one pebble returned and got transfigured into a blade mid flight, they knew they had gotten the right window - Nik climbed through and jumped down. Severus was disappointed when he didn't do a superhero landing.

“At least you didn't try to serenade me,” Nik teased Chaos before turning to Severus “Death will absolutely love you, kiddo,” the Potions Master was probably the only person who wore as much black as Death did.

Severus had the dignity to only raise an eyebrow. 

“Now that you met the craziest of them all, you may proceed with your questions.”

Severus’ first question would be a more eloquent version of “Wtf is going on here?!” if he hadn't spent months looking after Harry. 

“You said you're bringing the Dark Lord back. Will he…” Severus trailed off. He didn't need to finish the question for them to know what he wanted to ask.

“Yup, you're getting your Dark Lord back, whole and sane… Or as sane as one can get in this company…” They reassured him. 

Now that Severus stopped worrying so much, Nik asked his house for a porch since he didn't feel like climbing inside and he didn't want to ask the house for doors. The house shifted and grew a porch with a nice little fence, a swing, two chairs, blankets and a table with three cups of hot cocoa. Nik smiled fondly at his house - his home knew him so well.

Nik climbed over the fence and plopped himself down on the swing while Chaos lead Severus around and up the stairs so they could sit down like civilized beings. Surprisingly the porch was nice and warm, despite the island being a frozen fairyland. Nik handed them their cups and they started their explanation of how this madness came to be.

“So around a millennium or two, give or take a few centuries, ago Peace, War, Order and I were normal mortals like you or Tom,” Chaos started his explanation and ignored the raised eyebrow at the thought of any of them being even remotely normal.

“We were all gifted with incredible power and had no equal - at the time we just thought we had more magic than others but nothing special. It took a while to get us all in one place, but we became friends virtually overnight. We traveled the world and the seven seas, before we decided to settle down and create a school, which you know as Hogwarts,” Severus had already guessed who they were, so the only reaction was him bowing his head slightly.

“At that time, my daughter was born out of a one child contract and the other four thought of her like their own. She grew up, married and had a son, Mordred. We were happy and our students were safe. But then one day we found our little Elise, poisoned and her son and husband missing. That treacherous bastard of a Blood traitor was willing to turn his own son into a weapon against wizards. At that time we weren't aware of our powers. Ric accidentally gave me the Gift of Peace, his version of the Gift of Chaos, before Elise was born, but we didn't know it was him. When that happened I had been bitten by an unknown snake and he tried to save my life. Afterwards I was able to speak Parseltongue. It got passed down to Elise and it was our only hope of finding and recognising Mordred.

“Helga's immense healing skills were the only thing that enabled us to put a stopper to Death. It was her first time using her powers of War so it wasn't enough to fully heal her, but Elise’s comatose state would keep her alive. I had to do something, so I left the school in search of the bastard and my grandson. When I found him, he killed himself after telling me that he destroyed the last specimen of the plant needed for a cure and sent his son away. A bezoar had no effect and all hope seemed lost. 

“I couldn't find Mordred - I had no leads as to where he could be and went back to Hogwarts. By then he was be old enough to perform some magic and would be recorded in the book of students. While sailing across the North sea, I was caught by a storm and landed here. 

“The island was barren and my boat shattered. The only thing on it was a statue depicting dragons, but it was broken. After further inspection, I realized that I found the legendary Tir Na Nøg. It would save my daughter, but there was no magic left in it. In my sorrow I called forward the power of Chaos and the island became what you see today.”

“According to Magic he looked like he was having a temper tantrum,” injected Nik.

“So long story short, I went back to Hogwarts, took Elise…”

“In the middle of the night, giving Ric a heart attack in the morning.”

“And brought her here, where the magic of the island healed her. The poison drained her of a large portion of her life force, so I gave her a Gift of Chaos.”

“And created the most terrifying woman I know.”

“Would you shut up and let Severus ask a question?”

“If this is Tir Na Nog, shouldn't we all turn to dust once we get back?” Severus remembered the tale of Oisín and Niamh and had no wish of pressing the speed forward button on his life.

“That was the Tir Na Nog before its magic got broken due to ley lines moving and screwing up the magic tied to them. As you probably noticed, there's a statue of two dragons in the middle of the island - I moved the island so they once again mark the spot were three ley lines cross.” Chaos looked Severus in the eyes and said slowly “If anyone but Ric, Hel, Row or I bring anyone who's not Chosen by us to the island, they burn. If anyone has ill intentions towards any of the Chosen ones, they burn. If anyone does anything that would cause harm to any of our Chosen ones, they burn. Capisce?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Now that we're done with the formalities, tell me if Hogwarts is still standing.” Chaos was back to lounging in his chair as if he hadn't just given Severus the same type of speech that an overprotective father gives his daughter's date while holding a shotgun.

They spent the day talking about Hogwarts. Chaos was severely disappointed with what Dumbledore was doing to his school. Severus mentioned Lucius trying to get more teachers and classes - Nik was immediately interested in helping. 

In the late afternoon Chaos left to go pick Harry up from the train station while Severus and Nik went back to the mansion for dinner - the food that Nik's house had served for lunch was a good motivator. 

There they made their way to the kitchen that also served as a dining room, where they met an exhausted Will, Elise and Helga. Ric had gone to take a nap the moment they successfully transferred Tom from Quirrell to a new body. Helga used a lot of her power to summon the pieces of Tom’s soul and stitch them together. While working with the broken soul, Will and Elise realised that the soul shard that got stuck in Harry’s scar was a part of Tom’s soul, so they had to take off the wards on the vault where they had sealed it so it could rejoin the other pieces.

Quirrel managed to survive. He asked to be sent as far away from Hogwarts, Dumbledore and the rest of the megalomaniacs of the wizarding world as possible. Order gladly sent him to Canada with a new set of memories, so he could have a fresh start without even knowing that’s what it was.

Luckily for them, it was Kvothe’s turn to cook and they weren’t stuck with Nik’s creations that most wouldn’t call food. But they did have to look out for Deidara’s bombs.

That day they were the only ones on the island, because many wanted to spend the winter holidays visiting the places they grew up at. Most of them would come back for the Yule and New Year's celebrations, so this was the best time for Severus and Tom to meet their new family.

Somehow Severus ended up getting along with Deidara, the flashiest, loudest guy around. They were often found discussing the optimal way to blow up people they didn't like. The idea of hiding the explosive, which would trigger when coming into contact with stomach acid, in Lemon Drop candy was debated on to the extent that the two of them could successfully pull it off and not get caught.

Soon enough Harry and Chaos joined them. 

As the cook, Kvoth was the first to get his tackle hug, followed by Deidara and Severus, much to the Professor's surprise. The exhausted adults were spared the tackle part of the hug and Harry ended up sitting in Nik's lap.

It was during that evening that Severus noticed that Harry's blue necklace was actually alive. And then the snake unwrapped his wings and Severus realized that this is the reason why Draco and Harry ended up being such good friends. He honestly had no other explanation for why the blond would willingly let Harry drag him around the school. At least Harry was the only one to skip or jump on one leg instead of walking. Other students sometimes did it too, but Severus severely doubted that Harry could walk normally. He clearly got the energy from Will and picked up Nik's way of getting rid of it.

Harry was sad that Tom couldn't join them for dinner, but his mood quickly changed when he was promoted to tell the adults how school was. In his excitement he forgot that Severus was in the same room and ended up sounding like an advertisement for why the Potions Master is the best Professor.

The said Professor nudged Nik and pretend to whisper, making sure he was loud enough for the others to hear him: “Is there an off button on him?”

“Nope! He's like a jukebox - after you put in a coin there’s no stopping him,” Deidara didn't miss a beat with injecting the reply.

The light-hearted conversation lasted throughout dinner and clean up. They had all had a long day, so they scattered after they told Severus to pick a room to stay in - the empty ones had plain white doors, while the taken ones automatically got personalised ones. He had no idea who came up with the idea but it reminded him of the _Monsters Inc._ movie that he took Draco to see in the cinema.

The moment he chose the room, the furniture changed to suit his tastes. Mainly turning everything black, dark brown or silver with the pattern on the walls, bed sheets and the carpet taking on a Slytherin green shade. The ensuite bathroom matched the room with black tiles, green walls and dark furniture.

He unpacked his bag and prepared for bed. He didn't have to hear the sounds of a violin to know that this would be a long break that would cause him to turn gray prematurely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The jubox thing was borrowed form Ant Man & the Wasp movie ;) 
> 
> Ps: two of you believe that Harry will end up with Zuko and one said Loki while Death kept making puppy eyes... So I'll give you some ideas ^^
> 
> Zuko: 2  
> Loki: 1  
> One of Itachi's relatives (Naruto) ~~because we all know Ita can only bebwoth Dei~~  
>  Ace (One Piece)  
> Natsu (Fairy Tail)  
> Todoroki (BnHA)  
> Bakuto (BnHA)  
> Axel (Kingdom Hearts)  
> Humanoid Flareon (or some other fire type)  
> Rin (Ao no Exorcist)  
> Vincent (Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler)  
> Someone else that I missed ~~on purpose?~~


	12. Be our guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I would feel bad about how Luce is treated, but it's just so amusing xD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have only one thing to say about this chapter: ~Snek speak~

It took Severus a few days, but he realised that the people living in the manor already decided that he was one of them, even if Ric and Helga decided to hold off Choosing Severus and Tom and giving them their Gifts until Tom had recovered and gotten used to his new body. 

The Chosens had their Yule celebrations on the 21st and dragged Severus to join them.

It all honesty felt like sensory overload, but he managed to bond with many of them over one thing or another. He learned that Chaos’ gifts tended to be tailored to fit each individual's personality, so he ended up with the least amount of Chosens, but they were generally the craziest and most overpowered.

Order chose pretty much everyone who was dealt a bad hand in life, but only had her select few Chosen who retained their powers and memories after being reborn into a better life. Technically she had the most Chosen ones, but only had one _Chosen_ that she picked around the time Chaos returned to Hogwarts and only had her reborn a decade ago.

War tended to choose those with an outstanding potential for greatness, helping them reach the top without causing too much trouble for Order and the general population. Severus could see why the Viking was interested in Tom. 

As the Slytherin head of house, Severus found it ironic to be chosen by Gryffindor himself. After learning that Parseltongue is actually a Gift of Peace, he couldn't wait to see Tom’s reaction when he told him about this - his Lord should now be as sane as he was when they were still students and find it quite amusing. 

Tom was a few years above him at school and they were on friendly terms before the entire Dark Lord thing. Still, he was a loyal Death Eater and Tom trusted him enough to never be subjected to Legilimency or the Cruciatus even when he was more insane than Bellatrix on sugar high. He knew just enough Occlumency to trick Dumbledore into believing that he was his spy, but he wouldn't stand a chance if a natural Legilimens like Tom tried to find out what he's hiding. In his entire life the only thing he hid from Tom was whatever he and Lucius gotten him for his birthday that year and wanted to keep it a surprise...

Severus talked with Ric about the entire Chosen business. Gryffindor decided to give him the “ultimate Gift of Peace”, whatever that means. He knew that the Gift could be anything from being able to understand pretty much every language - animals included - to getting really good at talking people into doing as he asked, but he had no idea what Ric was actually planning.

Tom woke two days after they arrived on the island. With Helga's help, he was able to walk and move after a few days. In that time, the Malfoys and the rest of Tom’s Elite - except for those stuck in Azkaban - were notified of his return, but were told to keep it to themselves. 

Tom first wanted to _accidentally_ not tell Lucius that he holds no grudge against him for letting Draco befriend Harry, but he changed his mind when Severus reminded him that Lucius is actually useful - something that wouldn't be true if the blond started losing hair from stress. The Dark Lord had to agree - Malfoys cared about their looks so much that it almost wasn't funny anymore. Almost. So Tom wrote Lucius a letter, where he told him that if anything happened to the green-eyed brat, he's going to personally shave that blond hair off.

The letter was taken by Harry when he went to visit the Malfoys. He accidentally mentioned to Draco that they “kidnapped” Severus and he ended up promising to drag their favourite Professor to the Malfoy Winter Ball. Draco’s parents expanded the invitation to the Dark Lord and Harry's family.

On the day of the Winter Ball at exactly 13.00, Tom and Severus were taken by War and Peace to the statue of dragons to receive their Gifts.

The entire procedure was nothing special. Ric and Helga gave each the two men a pendant, that represented Peace and War respectively. They proceeded to pump magic into the pendants, until they got absorbed in Severus and Tom’s bodies, reappearing as tattoos. Severus watched as his Dark Mark disappeared and in its place appeared a serpent, wrapped around his wrist, with its head resting on the back of Severus' wrist. Tom had an occamy appear behind his ear, its wings spread just under his skull and following his hairline. The bird’s head was placed on Tom's cheekbone. 

While Severus's snake could only blink and hiss a bit, Tom's occamy could move wherever Tom wanted it to go. Peace and War were pleased to see that they achieved what they wanted - Tom kept his Parselmouth ability while Severus’ Gift contained some features that were normally only given by War. 

It was suggested that they test the Gifts. Neither of the two men had anything against it - after all that night they were expected to go to the Malfoy Winter Ball and had perfect lab rats.

* * * 

That evening Will opened a portal to the Ballroom in Malfoy Manor an hour before the start of the Ball. He didn't want to accidentally portal them on someone, even if it would be funny. Besides, coming early would allow Severus and Tom to test their new Gifts. Helga and Ric decided to give those two a bit of everything and since they did it at the same time and place, they managed to let Tom keep his Parselmouth Gift and give Severus’ a bit of Helga's healing Gift.

They had no idea if it would work, since the success of mixing gifts was as random as it got, but luckily for them it did. Not even War would voluntary face Tom if he wouldn't be able to speak with snakes anymore. 

Speaking of snakes, Lucius had the foresight to locate Nagini and bring her to his mansion before the Dark Lord arrived in the company of Severus and the Nymphirose family. He had no idea how that came to be, but he didn't question it since Harry obviously had something to do with it.

The snake was somehow able to sense her Master’s arrival and was by his side before Lucius could greet his old classmate and friend. 

~So pretty!~ cooed Harry. 

He ignored Ariel’s whining while he showered the older snake with compliments. Nagini seemed to enjoy all of the attention she was receiving and ignored Tom in favour of getting more pets and scratches from Harry. 

~I had no idea you could also speak Parseltongue. There was no mention of the Potter line being related to Slytherin's descendants,~ said Tom as he crouched next to Harry, who made himself comfortable on the floor with Nagini in his lap and Draco by his side.

~Wait, this is Parseltongue?~ nobody expected Severus to join the hissing, but only Lucius, Narcissa and Tom reacted. Harry had already convinced Draco to pet Nagini and nothing could get the boys' attention now, while the others were already so used to weird things happening that they didn't give it a second thought.

Luckily Severus noticed the looks his oldest friends were giving him and pieced together that Peace obviously included Parseltongue in his Gift and spoke before Elise could join the conversation between the Parselmouths. He really didn't want his closest friends to faint right before their Ball.

~I hope you have an excuse for this situation… And how do I switch back to English?~ 

~And you teased me for slipping into German during my first Potions class…~

“Lucius, Narcissa, is there any chance you'll forget about this?” Severus asked, expecting to be bombarded with questions.

“Sure," with that said, the two Malfoys blinked a bit before looking around a bit confused since they willingly forgot about their friend speaking in Parseltounge.

Severus realized that Ric was serious about his “ultimate Gift” muttering since he added coercion to the mix. And it obviously wasn't the first time Narcissa and Lucius were subjected to this kind of treatment. Especially when the three Nymphiroses looked totally innocent. 

At least that explained how they got the trust and confidence of everyone they were introduced to.

They spent the remaining time before the first guests arrived trying to get Tom up to speed with everything important that had happened in the past decade. The two boys were completely content with petting Nagini and Ariel.

The Ball went as expected - most didn't recognize the Dark Lord and Tom was able to determine who was still loyal just by looking at them. He had a weird feeling that Helga had something to do with this. 

Throughout the evening Severus and Tom realized how many boosts they were given that day and ended up hiding in a corner. Neither expected the amount of information they could gather by tapping into their Gifts. Or that caused them to learn things they would prefer to bleach out of their minds. 

“ _Trust me, it'll be fun_ he said. _What harm can legilimency bring,_ he said. Ric was obviously never subjected to listening what is going on inside some of these people's minds,” Severus muttered under his breath.

Tom had to muffle his laughter with his hand “At least you didn't accidentally charm a perverted old hag into telling you how much of an eye candy she thinks you are and what she would do if she was 30 years younger...”

They continued exchanging fun bits and pieces of information they accidentally learned about the guests attending the Ball. If they had known how much fun this was, they would have been half as annoyed by all of the Balls Lucius forced them to attend ever since they met.

After they grew bored of gossiping, they somehow started discussing different types of magic they saw over the course of the past week. They knew that most of it worked just because Chaos made it work, but that didn't make the debates any less fun.

The guests started to leave and the two were dragged out of their corner by Harry, who was thoroughly exhausted from chasing peacocks with Nagini. For Lucius’ wellbeing, nobody said a thing and hoped that the boy and snake didn't actually catch any. They hastily said their goodbyes and returned to the island - neither Tom nor Severus thought of going anywhere else.

* * * 

The following days passed peacefully, with only one explosion per day and three duels which caused lasting damage to the surroundings in one week. Once they were all dragged into a snow figh, that went from “whose snowballs hit the most people” to “who is more covered in snow” - somewhere along the way Harry, Tom and Severus started working together and would have won on both objectives, if Nik wouldn't have created Marshmallow the Snowgiant that ended up dissolving on Nik when hot chocolate was mentioned.

At one point Order brought Luna with her so her dads could have some peace for a change. Tom and Severus were glad that those two weren't in the same year, but were also terrified of having them both at Hogwarts next year. 

On New Years Eve they had fireworks. The Chosens didn't think much of it, since years lost their meaning after a century or two, but they still enjoyed the excuse to have a family reunion and to just enjoy the quiet evening while watching explosions of colors cast light on the island, covered with frost and snow.

After they ran out of fireworks, most stayed around for a bit, while Severus made sure Harry went to bed. On his way to his own room he saw Tom enter the room he chose for himself. In a spur of the moment Severus called out to him, before he could disappear in his room. 

“I just wanted to say, happy birthday, Tom,” he said, before he turned around and walked off to his room, missing the smile on Tom's face as the Dark Lord on Hiatus saw a present waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death!! You finally got to have a cute Sniddle moment in this fic xD It's not much, but for some weird reason I find this just so cute...


	13. Back to witches and wizards and magical beasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick history of Nik before anyone gets confused:
> 
> He was born a squib and sent to live in the Muggle world, where he made a name for himself as Nikola Tesla. One day an experiment went wrong and he ended up being sent to the past - more specifically he landed in front of Chaos about a year after he got the powers of Chaos. Of course a time traveller is as chaotic as it gets so Nik got a Gift of Chaos that enabled him to transfigure pretty much any non-organic matter. ~~Despite him staying in wizarding world, a ripple was made that speed up the development of Muggle world and that's why Harry knows modern references even if the story is set in the original timeline.~~
> 
> So after a while Nik got tired of Britain and moved around. In 14th century (around 1350) he moved to France and kinda forgot about the fact that he doesn't age. People started asking questions, so he came up with the Philosopher's stone. "Perenelle" is actually Elise who came to visit every now and then.

Harry spent the last day of his winter break doing his homework in the kitchen. Adults that came in search of a snack were forced to give their input every now and then, because Harry somehow managed to wander off to topics not discussed in his books. All in all, he was sure he'd get Os for every subject. 

When he started on his DADA essay, he realised that Tom wouldn't return to teach after the break was over, so instead of doing his last piece of homework, he went to find Tom. The man was brilliant teacher when he didn't feel the need to possess and control another man.

“Hey Tom, do I have to do my DADA essay?” he asked the moment he found him. When Tom turned around to answer him, Will started gesturing his thankfulness for being saved from questions he didn't know how to answer. It's not like he should be able to apply various magical and scientific theories while using his Gift. Nor did he want to have it dissected like a frog.

“Yes, you have to - or did I say the homework is optional?”

“But why? Will you return to teach?”

Tom started to think and soon had a brilliant idea. He would need Lucius to do something for him.

“If I scare Lucius enough, the Board should give me the job of DADA Professor by the end of the month - and I _will_ grade that essay,” he explained his idea while giving Harry a look that basically said that he' be in trouble if his essay magically disappeared before he got his hands on it.

And so Will was forced to tag along with Tom and open a portal to Malfoy Manor so they could pick Lucius up before going to Gringotts, while Tom got a shiny new identity as his own Scandinavian cousin. 

He was about to ask for his name to be changed to Tuomas Holopainen when the Goblin mentioned he could claim the Slytherin Lordship and so he settled for being Lord Tuomas Slytherin. 

Lucius thankfully prevented himself from laughing at his friend. Tom and he befriended Severus because of an incident in their fifth year. Tom was once again complaining how common and unwizardly his name is, when a normally quiet first year went almost ballistic with his tongue lashing, saying that Holopainen _’is the best thing that happened to the world’_. Tom was scared of Severus for a week after that.

It turned out that Will agrees with eleven year old Severus, since Tom and Lucius ended up listening to the pirate ramble on and on about how awesome Tuomas Holopainen is. Sadly for them, Will didn't stop talking after he and Tom got back to Avalon and Severus overheard them. 

Tom spent the rest of the day in hiding since apparently everyone on the blasted island was a fan of Finland and their bands.

* * * 

The train ride the next day was mostly uneventful, since many still had homework to do.

At one point Hermione walked to Harry's compartment and said in a monotone voice “Snape is trying to steal something that is connected to Nicolas Flamel and is hidden on the third floor corridor,” before she turned around and walked away.

Harry heard Weasley and Dursley talking about something similar before the holidays, so he brushed it off as a Gryffindor thing. If Severus wanted anything from Nikola, he could simply ask. It's not like Nik would say no to him.

* * * 

Classes resumed on Monday and Harry's first lesson was a double block of Potions. He and Neville once again finished early, but Harry told his friends to go ahead, because he had something to ask Severus. This happened so often that not even Draco thought anything of it, even if he knew that Severus and the Dark Lord spent the holidays at Harry's home.

When everyone left, Harry approached his Potions Professor.

“One would think you would have enough of my presence by now.”

Harry ignored him as he fished a box out of his bag.

“Tom said I have to give this to you today. He told me not to peek,” Harry pouted as he gave the box to Severus. The moment that the box was in Potion Master's hands, Harry bolted out of the classroom since he really didn't want to be late for History. Again.

Severus smirked to himself as he remembered Helena ~~ordering~~ asking him, and later also Tom, to stop debating with Harry before History of Magic, because they all knew that if you let this kid talk about subject he liked, he wouldn't stop. Ever. 

Thinking of Tom, he got curious to what the man had sent to him by Harry, that he couldn't give him before he had to return to Hogwarts. 

He opened the box.

Later that day, students and staff alike could swear that his lips were upturned in a small smile. It was considered being bigger news than the changes in the Professor’s appearance - a side effect of receiving the Gift of Peace, which obliviated all evidence of Severus’ harsh childhood, including the broken nose and various scars that he was forced to hide for most of his life.

* * *

_Fear_ ,Tom thought to himself, _is the most efficient method when dealing with Malfoys_.

They had to wait for a week after the new term started, so Dumbledore couldn't claim that the DADA Professor was just feeling a bit under the weather, before Lucius could bring up the issue at a Board of Governors meeting. He bought Tom’s file as Lord Tuomas Slytherin, filled with every magical and Muggle credential that Lucius could come up with.

By the end of the meeting, Tom had the job Dumbledore denied him all those years ago and he packed his bag so he could be at Hogwarts by the end of the month.

Lucius’ reward for job well done was being left alone so he could focus on the trial of Sirius Black that was scheduled at the start of February.

* * * 

Dumbledore officially hated January.

He lost Voldemort, was forced to accept a _competent_ DADA Professor and Sirius was getting a trial. Worst of all, the Gray Lady kept nagging him to get a History Professor who’s not dead. Where is he supposed to find a living wizard? He barely found someone for the DADA position every year and now he's to find another willing sacrifice? 

He believed that Quirrell would last him until the end of the school year - Tom did value education. He probably got disposed of twice as fast as the other DADA Professors because there were two ... of him?… in him?… No that sounds just wrong…

He had no idea who the new Professor was - he just knew that he had an actual teaching license. The last Professor to have one of those was hired by Dippet! At least the new guy wouldn't last for long. He'd either be taken out by the curse on the DADA position or the Headmaster would find a dirty secret or two to expose.

Or he could convince the Gryffindors that the new Professor was evil. He had to be. Why else would Lucius Malfoy omit his name? It wasn’t like Dumbledore wanted to know how to undermine him from the very beginning.

And then Dumbledore had an idea. He just had to contact a certain werewolf.

* * * 

A few days later, Remus received a letter during breakfast. At the enquiring looks from his pack, he grinned and said “Looks like they want me back at Hogwarts.”

The pack Alpha motioned him to hand over the letter. Remus handed it over without a second thought and turned his attention to the pack cubs who asked what Hogwarts was. Since they were werewolves, they weren't allowed to study in a school like Hogwarts and the adults didn't want to send their cubs all the way to Durmstrang. Instead Remus and a few others took over their education - they were even able to get wands for those that had magic. Illegal, not registered wands, made by Ollivander and his son in secret for creatures that were forbidden from carrying one, but still suitable wands.

Remus knew that the second term had already started, but he could pull off a few months without anyone realising that he was a werewolf. Dumbledore had asked him to cover for Binns who had somehow gotten himself fired and Remus was one of the few who took Newt level History. It was an easy O since he found a series of good History books in the restricted section and copied them. He still had the copies since he used them to teach the cubs.

“I’m going with you,” said his mate after he read the letter. He was worried about Remus being alone for his monthly transformations - a werewolf needed a pack during that time. And if the wolf was out on his own, he would go look for his pack with little to no regards to his own safety.

“Only if you stay in Hogsmeade. I don’t want the pack to end up on Registry,” Remus knew how hard his mate worked to keep everyone in their pack off the Werewolf Registry and didn’t want to throw it all away. If anyone learned of Remus’ condition, they would think he was still a lone wolf, just like he was before he met the pack. He lived away from other wolves for so long that he couldn’t even recognise his own mate - it made for some quite … _interesting_ months while Remus kept pushing the Alpha away. 

“As you wish.”

“Love you too,” Remus teased and turned to one of the Betas to ask her for a quill. 

The reply was soon sent off and Remus went to pack his bags while his Alpha gave the Betas and Omegas instructions on what to do in their absence. 

By this time the following week, he’d already be working as a History Professor while Fenrir Greyback stayed in a house in Hogsmeade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: So if I have this happen during summer before 3rd year I can have this event happen when Remi leaves Hogwarts and also burn Lockhart with it....  
> Remi: Well about that... *hijacks the story*  
> Me: Ok I'll have you date Luce earlier...  
> Remi: What, no! I want Fenrir!  
> Me: ... _fine_
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I had planned what Tom gave Sev for his birthday (I fucking checked the calendar to see on what day it was) and then I forgot what I planned... I know it was a stuffed toy, but I read one fic and now all I can think of is a shiny Zubat plushie...~~


	14. There’s no such thing as overdramatizing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been brought to you by Moony, the fic hijacking wolf   
> ~~he's responsible for almost everything until the time skip~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's one paragraph with 3 references squeezed in it... Here's a little hint xD
> 
> Legend shall speak  
> Of sacrifice at world's end  
> The wind sails over the water's surface  
> Quietly, but surely

A month and a half into the new term Hogwarts got two new Professors. Tom was first to arrive since Will gave him a lift and dropped him in in the Entrance Hall during dinner. Just for the better dramatic flare they gathered the Hogwarts ghosts and convinced them to act like Tom’s royal guard. Weirdly enough Peeves the Poltergeist was immediately in for the charade. 

Before leaving, Will summoned grains of dry ice that hovered around Tom, covering him in stage mist. Instead of knocking, Tom used the gong sound as he pushed the doors to the Great Hall opened with his magic, which was now amplified with the power of War. 

He walked calmly between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables until he reached Dumbledore, who stood from his throne.

“My boy, you must be the new Defense Against Dark Arts Professor!” exclaimed Dumbledore. There was something familiar about the man, but Dumbledore had no idea what.

“I am not your boy, _grandpa_ ,” said Tom in a low voice “But yes, I’m the new Defense Professor, Tuomas Slytherin,” at that point Nagini decided to poke her head out from under the collar of Tom’s travel cloak, where she was hiding from the cold mist.

“You’re the Dark Lord!” Dumbledore saw the man's eyes flash red and combined with the name Slytherin, there was no doubt who he really was.

“No, I’m the _Slytherin_ Lord. I was informed that the British wizarding world equates Slytherin with Dark and evil but that is not an excuse to insult me,” Tom pretended that he had no idea what Dumbledore was talking about.

“You know what I mean, Tom.”

“And when did I give you permission to call me so? From my information no-one with the name Dumbledore is an official part of the Wizengamot while I hold, how many was it? Three? No, four? Oh yes, six votes,” Tom was seriously enjoying himself. Not only did he get to have a dramatic entrance, but he was able to vent some of Dumbledore’s dirty laundry.

He turned away from the old man and made his way around the High table to sit in the empty spot next to Severus at the end of the table, away from Dumbledore and his throne.

The students broke the deathly silence by chatting a mile a minute with their neighbors about what just happened. Most of them had just enough time to come to terms with having a new, and according to C&C hot, Professor, when the heavy oak doors opened, drawing cold winter air into the Great Hall through the still opened doors to the Entrance Hall.

Students turned in their seats to see a tall man, wearing muggle jeans and T-shirt carrying a duffle bag over his shoulder together with his jacket, despite the weather. He walked the same path as Tom did before him. He had the same confidence, but instead of looking like he entered a battlefield, he looked like he returned home. When he reached the Head Table, he nodded to Dumbledore with a simple “Headmaster,” and turned to wink at Professor McGonagall with a mischievous grin. 

After a glance around the table, he chose to sit between Severus and Filius. Out of all the members of the staff he looked to be the most content with where he was. 

The Headmaster stood once again and introduced him as Remus Lupin, the new History of Magic Professor. To that the man grinned wolfishly but didn’t say anything. He just looked at the Slytherin table where C&C were already discussing the probabilities of two hot Professors coming at the same time. He almost laughed, when he heard Harry adding “Coincidence, I think not!” to the conversation.

* * *

Before the new DADA Professor had his first lesson, every Slytherin was terrified, knowing that this was the Dark Lord despite him calming otherwise. That is, every Slytherin except Harry, who knew the man, and Cupcake and Cookie who were missing their sense of self-preservation when faced with an attractive man. He tried to calm down his classmates, by telling them that Tom was actually possessing Quirrell and wasn't a bad teacher when he didn't have to fake a stutter.

For some reason that made most of the house even more terrified. One of the Hufflepuffs that were visiting that night (fake) screeched as he jumped on the nearest Slytherin's lap. The Slytherin looked pleased with the outcome.

After their first lessons, the snakes loved Professor Slytherin almost as much as they adored Professor Snape. He wasn't providing them the Hangover cures, but was able to teach them insane amounts during each lesson and enabled even seventh years to catch up with everything they missed due to years of incompetent Professors. By the end of the week the only ones disliking the man were those with a grudge against everything Slytherin.

Professor Lupin also quickly got the adoration of most of the school. As much as Helena tried, she didn't have the needed information to properly teach third year and above. Remus was one of those teachers who sat on their desk and taught like they were simply talking with students, but what got the students to love him were the animated figurines that were playing out the events Remus was talking about. Sometimes he even got some of the students, ghosts or suits of armor to help out with “the show”. 

First and second years were still taught by Helena, so the first time Harry talked with Remus was when the man invited him for tea. That day he told Harry that he knew James and Lily. During the war Remus drifted apart from his school friends and had a falling out a bit after Harry was born. He still sent a gift for Harry's first birthday, but the Potters returned it unopened.

Harry didn't ask to hear more about them - he already knew that Severus most likely hated his father for some reason and people always talked about how they were loyal to Dumbledore. Instead he told Remus that he was listed as one of the possible guardians in the wills, but that the Goblins knew that he was a werewolf.

Remus looked like a deer caught in headlights upon hearing this. James and Lily forbade him from coming near them when they learned that he started dating another werewolf. They didn't know it was Fenrir, but just knowing that it was another werewolf was enough to break their already strained friendship. They said that Dumbledore was right about Remus being the one to betray them and decided on having Sirius as a secret keeper. 

It was then that Remus learned that Sirius' trial was on the same day as Remus and Tom’s arrival to Hogwarts. According to Draco, he was found innocent and had moved in with his cousin, Draco's mother, at the Black family ancestral home. She had medi-witch training and would be able to help him recover from his stay in Azkaban.

Dumbledore sent Sirius a letter, asking him to cover for Remus during full moons, but Narcissa made sure that Sirius declined - he was nowhere stable enough to be around children. Still, Remus knew that Dumbledore was hoping to exploit the fact that he and Sirius dated before Remus reached his werewolf majority. That was when he realized that Sirius wasn't his mate because every touch and kiss felt wrong, like he was cheating on someone he didn't even know.

Remus broke up with him soon after that and James, together with his wife, sided with Sirius. After that their friendship was on a thin ice, which broke when they learned that Moony chose a werewolf over Sirius. James and Lily never changed their wills to exclude Remus, but they made sure he would never get legal custody of their son - after all the Wizengamot did plan on voting if werewolves should be allowed to adopt non-creature children.

At the time, Remus wanted nothing to do with Fenrir, but when he tried to ask his friends for advice, he was left alone.

Even if he lost his friends, he didn't regret any of it. Not anymore at least. Leaving his human friends enabled him to truly reach out to werewolves and other creatures. They were the ones to pick up the pieces, when he didn't even know what's so good about picking up the pieces if he didn't even want to. He believed that even all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again, but the pack did so. Quietly, but surely.

He decided to give Fenrir a chance, even if he was the one who turned him when he was just a child. The Alpha knew Remus hated him, but he still let him into the pack. He was seeking Remus out even before the first full moon when they realised they were mates. It took Remus long months to get over his friends turning their backs on him, but Fenrir stayed by his side. The entire pack did. 

And they helped him accept Moony as a part of himself.

Remus didn't know when the change happened, but all of the sudden he was looking forward to full moons. With a bit of practice, he was able to transform to his wolf form at will, like an animagus could, but at the same time different. When in their wolf forms, the pack members knew where the others were, how they felt, what they thought, even if separated. 

The only reason he tried to reach out to the Potters on Harry's birthday was because he thought of him as a pack cub, even after the entire Moony-found-us-a-mate fiasco less than a year prior. He still felt like that, and Fenrir accepted the fact that Remus would probably return from Hogwarts with another cub… or three. He was as bad with picking up “strays” as Fenrir himself. Most of their pack members were werewolves abandoned by their families and society alike.

Remus was at first worried, knowing that Fenrir essentially worked for the Dark Lord, who was after Harry, but was pacified when Fenrir got a message from Tom, threatening anyone who would dare to hurt the child. 

Remus was brought back to the present when someone knocked on his office door. 

It was Severus. The Potions Master knew that Remus was sent amongst the werewolves during the last war. He didn't expect him to stay longer than necessary - and definitely not for over a decade, but he looked better for it. Many would question his assumption, but he was joined by Fenrir on many missions for the Dark and now knew as much about werewolves as if he was one of them. 

Remus looked like the poster boy for a healthy werewolf with a mate and a pack and Severus knew that Fenrir was probably the only man stubborn enough to make Remus stay. And apparently he did it.

“Dumblesore asked me to brew your … _medicine_ ,” one didn't have to be a werewolf to know that the potion caused more harm than good.

“I’ll give you chocolate if you bring me a goblet of tea instead.”

“Add babysitting the brat,” at that Severus looked at Harry “and you got yourself a deal.”

Remus pretended to think about it, saying “Alright, but you have to add honey to the tea,” as he shook Severus’ hand.

Harry simply looked annoyed since they talked like he wasn't right there.

* * *

During the war Remus never met the Dark Lord, but he was still able to recognize him. In any other scenario, he would refuse to be anywhere near the man, but before his entrance on his first day, he… overheard what he said to the headmaster.

Not to mention that he knew just who was responsible for all creature restrictions passed in the last decade. 

He first talked with Tom, when he visited Severus, to ask him to keep an extra eye on the kids during the full moon in two days. Normally he could control himself, but he hadn’t seen Fenrir in almost a month - he could, in theory, visit during the weekends, but they didn't want to make Dumbledore suspicious.

Tom suggested that they put chains on the Slytherin entrance so that they would at least know if Harry decided to go on one of his midnight walks.

By March, Remus was comfortable enough to call him ‘Tom’ without looking like he just signed his death warrant while accepting ‘Mutt’ as his official nickname when around those two.

In April the three of them were already used to spending their evenings in Severs' quarters either indulging Harry's curiosity or making up elaborate schemes to get rid of Dumbledore. 

By the time May rolled around, the schemes were getting so ridiculous that some students joined in on the “prank the goat” brainstorming sessions that were now happening in all common rooms except Gryffindor. Remus thought he was hallucinating when he saw the Weasley twins and Oliver Wood casually hanging out with the Slytherin quidditch team that served as pillows for some members of the Hufflepuff team. Tom assured him that this is normal and Severus informed that members of Ravenclaw team would join if they didn't have a pile of personal projects they were working on.

In June they rewarded the funniest prank idea by giving the seventh year Hufflepuff who came up with it a pack of candy and their full support in executing it. 

The first part of the prank focused on getting blue muggle dye in the Headmaster's body wash, effectively giving him a ‘Papa Smurf’ look. They could have used a spell but that would have been the first thing people would think of - and _finite incantatem_ doesn't work on muggle dyes. Before giving the altered product to the house elves, one Slytherin asked the professors to charm it so that the color would become slowly visible only after Dumbledore sat down at the High table. This way the Headmaster wouldn’t notice the prank until it was too late.

Tom and Remus volunteered to be the ones who would charm Dumbledore’s robes to resemble the character after he turned blue and Severus was tasked with giving him a potion that would cause him to spit bubbles whenever he tried to talk. He earned himself bonus points for trapping the words that his victim said in the bubbles. 

The students found a spell that caused the one who was hit by it to imitate animal sounds whenever the name of an animal was said. Coincidentally, Harry introduced the students to “What does the fox say?” a few days before.

The Weasley twins convinced the house elves to add onions to everything Dumbledore tried to eat that day. After mentioning bonus points if they could make him bite into a big piece of onion, one elf disguised an onion as a caramel apple. The twins got inspired and asked for a plate of donuts filled with vegetables and mayo for every table.

Some muggleborns somehow produced an obscene amount of air horns. One of them went a step further and provided a pack of sugar-free gummy bears that were placed in the bowl where the Headmaster usually kept his lemon drops.

The evening before the prank, the prefects first stuck the air horns on every door that was frequently used, charmed them to trigger whenever the door opens and then disillusioned them. One of the muggleborn prefects got an idea and when they spread around the school, they conjured posters or various muggle and magical celebrities over the portraits. Every Nicholas Cage picture was enforced with a sticking charm.

In the morning, dramatic classical music started to play in the background the moment Dumbledore stepped into the Great Hall. 

Most of the students, together with Severus, Tom and Remus, knew of the prank, but only those in charge of getting things done knew what would happen. And even they only knew a part of it - partially because they all added something to it and partially because nothing ever goes as planned. Just like how Professor McGonagall accidentally got a taste of onion flavoured jam.

Her fury wasn't enough to stop Remus from laughing and the rest of the Great Hall soon followed when their friends bit into something nasty. It was all in good fun, especially because the house elves kept tabs on everyone living in the castle and made sure no-one could accidentally eat something they were allergic to.

The Hall slowly filled and people noticed Dumbledore turning blue, together with the top of his robes. The bottom part changed color so it looked like red pants. After a moment, Tom sent another spell at Dumbledore’s hat so it would be an exact replica of Papa Smurf's hat.

When the Headmaster noticed the changes, he laughed a bit and took a sip from his goblet. He stood up to address the students, but when he started to speak, only bubbles came out. The moment the bubbles broke, the music in the background stopped, so everyone could hear what the Headmaster had to say. But they didn't understand much, since many bubbles burst at the same time and created a weird effect of Dumbledore talking over himself. 

The Headmaster tried again, this time slower, but the bubbles didn't break in the same order as he said the words, mixing up his sentence into a mess that you could hear a toddler say.

In the end, he had to resort to saying each word separately and waiting for the bubble to burst before continuing. Two seventh years made a game out of keeping the bubbles from bursting as long as they could, without making it look unnatural. The students near them added a rule of anyone being allowed to try and break the bubbles, as long as they didn't get caught.

They managed to confuse Dumbledore into forgetting what the last thing he said was, bursting the bubbles so quickly that he forgot to wait and ended up once again with a pile of unbroken bubbles and even hiding a few bubbles and then exchanging them with those that Dumbledore had just produced.

When they confused him enough to wait for a bubble that they already broke,the Headmaster left the Hall before he could do anything that would destroy his image as a good and benevolent grandfather. 

His high pitched scream was heard over the sound of an air horn.

By lunchtime a large chunk of the student population got charmed to look like Smurfs - boys got white pants with blue shirts while girls wore Smurfette’s dress. The both outfits had white pointy hats and soft blue robes. Dumbledore started meowing when McGonagall mentioned cats and barking when Flitwick said he prefered dogs.

The classical music in the background was replaced with random songs that students requested. It turned out that Dumbledore could make a spot on imitation of a fox.

During dinner the staff couldn't determine who came up with the pranks - they could only say that Slytherins and Ravenclaws had something to do with the air horns, since the potions classroom, the labs and the library were free of all noise. 

Nicholas Cage’s pictures stayed on the walls for over a week.


	15. Let's steal ourselves a mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Btw, before reading watch this because it makes one scene hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETLCm7k3sU

Not long after the prank on Dumbledore, the exam period started. Harry didn't spend a lot of time studying - the most he did before exam was reading through his history textbook again, even if he was fairly certain he had the vital parts down.

He mostly ignored Hermione and other studious first years in favour of spending more time playing outside. 

Whenever he got bored and his friends were busy, he pranked the youngest Weasley boy and Dursley. He also did other pranks and jokes, but these were, just like Weasley twins’ joke products, focused on making everyone laugh without hurting anyone. 

Pranks on the two Gryffindors were focused on making their life hard. He drew the line at physically hurting them, but there were many other ways he could teach them a lesson. 

The previous month they were laughing at Neville for being chubby. So Harry asked the house elves to only put the most fattening foods in front of the two boys. By now the two already needed a bigger pair of pants.

Dursley tried to make Hermione cry by calling her a know-it-all and a traitor for hanging out with Tracy and other Slytherin girls, so Harry got revenge for her. He changed the gender signs on the Myrtle’s toilet doors right before Dudley ran past him in a hurry to get to the toilet - curtsy of Tilly the house elf. The moment he was in, Harry locked the door and left. He waited for an hour before telling Professor Snape that he saw a boy walk into the girls’ bathroom with a crying ghost girl - by then he already felt sorry for Moaning Myrtle who was stuck with Dursley.

On the afternoon after the final exams for first years, you could find Hermione and many of the Ravenclaws in the library, wanting to read as much as possible before they had to go home for the summer, and Neville in the Greenhouse, helping Professor Sprout. The Hufflepuffs, Slytherins and the rest of Ravenclaw fist years left the common rooms to the older students, who still had exams, and decided to have a picnic at the lake.

Harry spent an hour or so with them, but he wanted to move, so he decided to go explore the castle a bit more. He had already found a few secret passages that weren't on the Marauder's map and wanted to see if there were more of them.

He wandered around the castle when he saw Dursley and Weasley running into Professor McGonagall. He overheard the conversation and found it hilarious - the Gryffindors still haven’t gotten bored of their little game. He already walked away when his yearmates decided to explore the third floor corridor. 

It had already been two days since he last visited the fluffy little puppy on the third floor, so he made his way to the kitchen, using secret passages. Poor animal might think Harry forgot about her, so he went to pick up some meat for the puppy. The elves offered him food, but he just had lunch, so he only took a cookie since he didn’t want to make the lovable creatures sad. 

He asked Tilly to pop him to the puppy so he wouldn’t be seen walking around with three bowls of meat. Witches and wizards can’t Apparate inside of Hogwarts and her wards, but that doesn’t mean house elves can’t. Normally they couldn’t take anyone with them, but this is Harry we’re talking about.

Tilly dropped him and the three bowls in front of the massive female Cerberus and popped away as soon as she could. Cerberus had been napping, but the moment one of the heads smelled Harry, the dog rose to her feet and licked him with all three tongues. Harry petted each head and told them to eat - he had no idea who was in charge of the puppy, but that person had no idea how to properly take care of a pet. The room where she’d been staying in had no windows, there was no dog bed, no bowl of fresh water and he doubted she had regular walks. He would have to ask Chaos for a dog house since he _would_ be keeping her.

He petted and praised the animal when the doors opened and in walked Weasley and Dursley. They tried to be sneaky, but an elephant could be more discreet than the two of them. Harry barely spared them a glance before he returned to scratching the left head.

“Dudley, what is that stinky slimy Slytherin doing in here?”

“He works for Snape,” answered the blond, “We need to get rid of him!”

“But how?”

“We can beat him up?”

“You know, you two could stun me or at least use a Full-body bind spell,” Harry deadpanned. He tried to get closer to the two boys, but Cerberus stood in his way. He told her to sit and she immediately obeyed and sat directly on the trap door. 

“But we weren’t taught those spells!” True to the boy’s words, _stupefy_ is a fourth year spell and _petrificus totalus_ was only mentioned in the Charms textbook.

Harry didn’t grace them with a response. Instead he asked what they were doing here and that he would not give them the puppy. 

“Puppy? You call that beast a _puppy_?! You’re insane.”

“Why thank you.”

The Gryffindors gave him a weird look before explaining how Snape killed Quirrell and was trying to steal the Stone, hidden behind various obstacles. 

“You mean like an obstacle course?”

“Ummm probably?” 

“Ok, I’m joining you!” Harry decided and asked the puppy if she could move. The Cerberus gladly obeyed and was rewarded with having all of her three heads patted.

Harry opened the trap door and jumped in, knowing he could fly without a broom and wouldn’t get hurt from it. The other two boys followed his lead, but ended up falling down with a full G of acceleration while Harry used his magic so he fell with a constant velocity. 

Weasley hit the bottom first since he experienced less air resistance than Dursley. He screamed bloody murder when he felt something move underneath him. Dursley started hitting everything he could reach, hitting Ron in the process. This only encouraged the plant that was attacking them. By the time Harry reached them, their heads were the only parts not covered in vines. 

“Awww those are my mom’s favourite vines! Aren’t they pretty?” he cooed, “I see those are the original vines… She upgraded them the moment Nik learned how to conjure fire…” Harry almost got caught up in talking about the plant, but the screams of his classmates being devoured by a Devil’s Snare reminded him that he should probably try saving them.

Out of respect for his mother, he didn’t conjure a fire but simply cast a strong lumos. The vines let go of the boys the moment the light reached them. Looks like someone degraded the vines instead of upgrading them by making them a lot more sensitive to light.

The Gryffindors fell on the floor while Harry prefered to stay in the air. 

His decision proved itself useful, when they walked in a room full of flying keys and one hit Harry in the head. He instinctively grabbed it. It was big, old looking and its wings were Harry’s favourite shade of blue. 

He was still holding the key when he floated up to Weasley and Dursley at the door on the other side of the chamber. It was locked, so Harry tried to _alohomora_ it. It didn’t work. Harry grinned and ducked so he could peek through the keyhole, but couldn't see anything. He conjured a floating ball of light the size of a small marble and sent it inside the keyhole and looked again.

It turned out that its mechanism was as old as it appeared to be. Harry focused on specific parts of the lock and pushed on them with his magic. They could hear the click signaling that the door was now unlocked.

As the three boys walked to the next challenge, Harry took one of his old violin strings and used it to tie the key in his hand around his neck. When they saw the giant chess set, Harry took up in the air, trying to skip the game he absolutely hated. It involved too much sitting still for his liking.

Sadly the white King piece caught him and held him in his hands. He let Weasley command the pieces since the kid couldn't stop bragging about how great he was at chess. 

Harry got bored after their second move. He started humming a melody that popped into his head. In the back of his mind he realised that this is the song Will chants when seriously fighting with Elise, but his conscious mind ignored that detail. Soon the lyrics to _London Bridge is Falling Down_ came from his mouth in uncharacteristically quiet and monotone voice as he accidentally used Will’s Gift.

The effects weren't visible right away, but made themselves apparent when the enchantments slowly started to crumble. The anti-cheating enchantments fell, but Harry seemed to be the only one who noticed that. He gestured the King figure to lean closer and asked him to order all of the white figures to attack the opponent King on their next move.

The chess piece obviously had some Slytherin tendencies as he grinned and did exactly as Harry suggested. This had to account for the shortest game of chess.

He ignored the two Gryffindors as he said goodbye to the King and made his way to the next chamber. In it was a huge mountain troll, pacing the length of the room. 

“Weasley? Dursley? I had no idea that Professors would be willing to set human transfiguration as a trap…”

“What?”

“Wait, if you two are here, then that's an actual troll?!” 

Harry's insult flew right over Weasley and Dursley’s heads. He ignored them and turned his attention to the troll. It was big and strong enough to wield a cub the size of a tree. Harry knew from the stories he heard back home that trolls came to be when a muggle made a deal with a witch, saying “I would trade everything for power” - trolls were, relatively, physically the most powerful humanoids, but had little to no physical defense and the only strategy they could muster was a brute force approach. Over the centuries, they evolved high resistance to magic.

At Harry's current level, the best course of action would be to sneak around the troll, but sadly he came with two Gryffindors who started firing spells at it. As Harry predicted, the first year spells did nothing but irritate the creature. 

He grabbed the two boys and dragged them back to the previous chamber, where he saw the chess pieces using the board as a beach as they lounged around. Harry asked nicely and the white King let him borrow a stone sword that the figure carried. Harry had to concentrate hard to levitate the heavy object into the room with a troll. He wanted to end him rightly, so he unscrewed the hilt and took a pommel shot at the troll, hitting it in the head. 

The troll was down for the count and Harry returned the weapon to the chess piece. King took one look at the separated pieces and facepalmed himself. Harry took that as a good sign.

Dursley looked reluctant to continue, but Weasley started talking about how they'll be hailed for protecting the Stone from 'a greasy git’ also known as Professor Snape as Harry corrected him. They crossed the room with the fainted troll and walked into a chamber with a table, seven bottles and a riddle written on a piece of paper. 

When the boys made their way inside, a wall of flames flared in front of both doors, trapping them in the room.

Harry read the riddle out loud. It didn't take him long to determine which bottle contains what liquid, but his companions looked like they had no clue what was going on. Harry almost pointed to the correct vial, when he remembered that this was Severus’ challenge and it just seemed too easy. 

He took each container and checked what it contained. The wine smelled of a sleeping draught while the bottles that should contain potions that would enable you to continue ahead or turn around only contained chilled apple juice. With a look at the two Gryffindors, he decided to let them drink the wine and get them in trouble. 

The two boys believed Harry and drank from the wine bottle, thinking that this was the potion that would let them continue. They were asleep before they reached the flaming wall. Harry thought of sending them to the Entrance Hall with house elves, but he remembered it wouldn't work for them. 

Guessing that the staff probably has some kind of alert system, he decided to leave them there and finish the obstacle course. 

The next chamber was the last one, since it didn’t have another exit than the door Harry entered through. It only contained a tall ornate mirror. He looked into it, expecting some kind of an elaborate trap, but nothing happened. It was just a normal mirror. He stepped closer to see if there was anything hidden, but didn’t see a scratch on the surface. Afterwards he took a couple steps back, to see if there was anything hidden in plain sight. 

He noticed the writing on the frame and read it.

“I show not your face but your heart’s desire… I guess it must be broken.”

Harry walked around the mirror, trying to find the stone, but it wasn’t there. He sighed and went back in front of the mirror, where he sat down and tried to think of where the Stone might be.

He remembered the conversation he had with Elise when he called her on the train back in September and decided to use Will’s chant.

 **”Wo ist der Stein der Weisen?!”**

Sparkles appeared above Harry’s right hand and made a trail, that lead to the mirror and then surrounded the mirror.

“The stone is in the mirror? Or is the mirror actually the stone?”

According to Nik, the stone was as big as both of Harry’s fists pressed together, so he ruled out Stone being hidden in the thin frame of the mirror. He tried _finite incantatem_ but nothing happened. He also tried calling Elise, but his phone had no reception. 

He pouted at the mirror.

“If this is how you want to play…”

Harry stood up and walked the the mirror so he could put his palm on the centre of the reflective surface. When he was first learning how to make Black mirrors, he had to take a normal mirror apart and turn it black before he could enchant it, but by now he could skip the first step and turn the mirror black as he enchanted it. A Black mirror worked exactly like a Two way mirror did, but you only had to enchant one mirror and could connect with any reflective surface in the recipient’s area. They were also marked as ‘dark artifacts’ and thus illegal to own. Harry ignored the previous enchantments since they obviously didn’t work.

Little did he know but as he enchanted the Mirror of Erised and turned it into a Black mirror, he created an artifact that worked remarkably similar to the Resurrection stone. 

Harry focused on his mother and the black surface in front of him morphed to show the kitchen in the manor, where Elise and other Chosen ones with too much time gambled various knick knacks in a game of poker. He called out to them and they all turned to the mirror hanging on the wall. Money and ownerships of various trinkets changed hands as they settled the results of a bet on how long it would take Harry to mirror call them.

Nik had a five minutes long dramatic monologue about his broken heart, because he bet on Harry doing so during his first week at Hogwarts, not the last. 

They ended up chatting until Harry heard voices in the previous room, signaling that the two Gryffindors had started to wake up. 

“I have an idea,” said Harry with a grin.

* * * 

Severus was grading final exams when first Remus and then Tom decided to use the living room in his quarters as a common room. Again.

When they arrived, the Potions Master strategically sat with his legs on the couch so he had the couch for himself even if he had to use a book as a writing surface. 

Since Remus got dibs on the only chair in the room, Tom was forced to either leave or drag a chair from somewhere. The Dark Lord just shot them both a glare, conjured himself a pillow and plopped on the floor so he was leaning on the couch where Severus’ legs were. 

“Are you quite done invading my personal space?” Severus said the moment Tom used his leg as a headrest.

“I can still invite Fen…” 

“One mutt is quite enough - but you could always leave and take his royal Darkness with you,” after hanging out with Severus for months, both Remus and Tom knew Severus didn’t mind their company even if he always snarked at them to leave him alone.

“And you think you could handle the brat on your own?” Tom joined the conversation.

At that moment an oval shaped disc of darkness appeared in the middle of the room, giving Remus a fright when Severus simply said “Tom, how many times do I have to tell you not to jinx?”

Remus was openly gaping while Harry and Will stepped through the portal, which closed after them. He didn’t smell either of them before they appeared, but you can’t Apparate in Hogwarts and the contradicting event made him feel like a hamster that’s running in a wheel inside his head to power his mind, got _stupefy_ ed and the momentum of the wheel carried the hamster backwards and up the wheel until gravity did its job and the hamster plopped back to the bottom of the wheel.

“Severus, you can find two Gryffindors sleeping off the wine in the first classroom to the right on the fifth floor,” Will said, before he opened a portal back to Avalon and left.

“Mutt, you would be catching flies if Severus didn’t scare them away,” Tom ducked before Severus could kick him.

Remus closed his mouth just to open it again in an attempt to say something, but he made no sound. Being the mate of the most feared werewolf seemed like nothing special when he was in Harry’s company. He didn’t know why, but Remus was sure Harry was the reason why weird things kept happening. 

“Sevvie, I think Remy is broken,” commented Harry.

“How many times did I tell you not to call me that?”

“This week? Twenty-five times,” provided Tom before he had to roll out of Severus’ kicking range and got up. “Anyways, wanna go removing points from Gryffindor?” he suggested as he offered Severus a hand.

Severus took it and said “One would think you’re trying to bribe me.”

Tom responded with an innocent face. 

When Severus and Tom finally left, Remus found his voice again as he stated “Apparating inside of Hogwarts should be impossible.”

“Oh that wasn’t Apparating it was Portaling.”

“Still the wards should be able to prevent anyone who’s not a student or a staff member to come inside the castle,” or at least that was what the books on Hogwarts said and so far no-one reported to be able to do otherwise.

“Will was keyed into the wards when he came to pick up Tom for the Yule break,” Remus was already informed of what happened during the two weeks between the semesters and didn’t think much of it - one could only see Harry call the two most terrifying men at school ‘Tommy’ and ‘Sevvie’ together with nicknaming Lucius ‘Uncle Lucy’ so many times before you stop reacting to unbelievable stuff going on.

“Will is one of your guardians, right? I hope you asked them about spending a bit of your summer with Fenrir and I.”

The look on Harry’s face told him that he had forgotten about doing so. Remus was about to make a joke on how he’ll have to sniff Harry out, when the kid extended his arm and flicked downwards it as he snapped his fingers. A cloud of black mist formed where Harry’s arm just passed through air and expanded itself enough to completely cover the mirror that formed inside of it. As Harry dropped his hand, the mist disappeared, leaving behind only a tall mirror with an intricately carved frame. The writing on the frame told Remus that this was the Mirror of Erised. He turned away from the mirror, knowing what the artifact did. He noticed Harry looking at the mirror so he stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the mirror.

“Harry! This mirror is dangerous! It lulls people into looking at it, feeding them fantasies of their deepest desires as they waste away.”

“I know what it's supposed to do, but it's broken. The Headmaster had it at the end of the obstacle course for some reason…”

“What do you mean by broken? Did you look at it?” Remus was frantic - he saw Harry as one of his cubs and couldn't stand the thought of him being harmed in any way.

“Yes, but it worked like a normal mirror. I didn't have phone reception so I turned it into a black mirror. Will said I can keep it!” contacting his family was temporarily put on hold as Harry started rambling on different kinds of magical mirrors and why it would be fun to have one.

Some things that Harry said intrigued Remus and his need to know as much as possible and the two ended up discussing various magical artefacts from muggle fiction and how they could be created using magic.

* * * 

That morning Dumbledore made a show out of receiving a letter, summoning him to the Ministry, that he sent himself and locked himself in his office so he could view what's going on in the obstacle course he made the professors set up. 

He thought that Harry would spend a lot more time in the library after he used an compulsion on Hermione, but the students returned from their winter break and nothing changed. He didn't even start hanging out with Ron and Dudley - they followed the clues that the Headmaster left for Harry and figured out the entire mystery by now. Those two are such good boys.

They went to Minerva first, but a strategically placed compulsion took care of that and the two had to go save the Stone on their own. He asked the portraits if Harry followed them, but they said he went to the kitchens instead. The Headmaster took out his crystal ball and connected it with his spying spells. He could view everything that the spells recorded, but the sound was missing. Normally that wouldn't be a problem since he could read lips, but for some reason the spells only recorded darkness. All he could see was a dark, almost black mist that filled the crystal ball the moment he tried to see what was going on.

Either someone used a privacy spell or his crystal ball malfunctioned. It would be impossible for first years to cast anything as complex as privacy charms or spells, so it had to be the crystal ball. Now he was forced to wait until he was summoned back to Hogwarts. He really shouldn't place an one-time-use alarm on that trap door…

Now that he was stuck in his office for an indefinite period of time, he could go through some reports that he neglected throughout the year. He blindly signed the school budget and sent a positive reply to the first application for DADA position that he grabbed. He still had a teacher for that spot, but the curse that Voldemort placed on the position should deal with that. He couldn't get dirt on the current Professor because in the rest of Europe Durmstrang was seen as an a lot more prominent institution than Hogwarts so Dumbledore held no authority that would enable him access to Tuomas Slytherin's personal information and school records.

He slowly made his way through the paperwork that filled his table until he reached his journal where all of his mental notes were kept. It was a brilliant piece of magic that caught his thoughts before he would forget them and only he could view it. Anyone else would see an empty notebook that he had not yet had the chance to use. He read through the entries, starting with the most recent that simply read _Check the spells on 3rd floor_. He skipped it since he couldn’t do that right now and read the previous entry reading _School budget_. Since he dealt with that not so long ago, he crossed out the entry, making it disappear from the journal. And so Dumbledore went through tasks noted in the notebook, crossing out those that were already completed and making notes next to those that he was in process of dealing with.

It was already dinner time when Dumbledore reached notes made in September, so he closed the book and made his way to the Great Hall, using the secret passages. He was surprised at how much time had passed and no-one notified him about kids saving the Philosopher’s Stone. Thinking about it, no-one even took the stone out of the mirror - he had another alarm set to trigger if the stone was removed. He spotted Harry eating at the Slytherin table but he couldn’t see Ron and Dudley in the Hall. He leaned over to Minerva and asked her where the two were - they had yet to miss a meal since they were always on time for both lunch and dinner and ate breakfast despite oversleeping in the mornings. 

Her face betrayed nothing as she calmly informed him that the two were found sleeping in a classroom on the fifth floor, smelling strongly of alcohol. Since the school year was practically over the normal punishments would be pointless, so when they’d wake up, they would have to stay under adult supervision until the train left. She already sent a letter to their parents.

Dumbledore paled - if it wasn’t Dudley and Ron, then who entered the secret obstacle course? He excused himself as soon as he could without raising suspicion and went to the third floor. He entered the chamber with the Cerberus and saw the animal playing by opening and closing the trap door. Apparently Hagrid’s pet was the one to trigger the alarm. It also explained why his spying spells failed - they had nothing to spy on. Greatly relieved he made his way through, just in case something had happened.

He used a spell to reveal a staircase around the walls of the secret passage and made his way down. The Devil’s Snare appeared unharmed as it moved away from the light that the Headmaster’s wand produced. He descended to the ground and made his way through to the room where Filius’ keyes were still flying around. He unlocked the door with a copy of the key and proceeded to take a secret passage around the rest of the tasks - they were all spelled to return to the original state after some time passed and wouldn’t tell him if anyone passed through them. 

Dumbledore entered the room in which he placed the Mirror of Erised only to find it empty. He looked through the room and even explored the previous challenges, but couldn’t find the dangerous artifact. Apparently someone really did go through the obstacle course and reached the end. They either couldn’t get the Stone out of the Mirror or thought that the Mirror was what was hidden. In either case, it was the Mirror of Erised that was stolen and he could always spin the story his way by saying it was found shortly before the arrival of the students in September and that transfering it before the school year ended would have been too dangerous. It’s not like anyone saw the Mirror before he succeeded in hiding the Stone in it or that anyone but the two Gryffindors even knew about the Stone. Harry might be able to piece the puzzle together, but the kid wasn’t anywhere near the books that mentioned Nicholas Flamel and Nymphirose didn’t sound like a Pureblood name. 

Content with his plan of action he left for his rooms. At first he wanted to see if there was something in his journal that he forgot to do, but he decided against it. If he would have done it, he would have flipped a page and realised that he did nothing to prevent the friendship between Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood that united over half of the Quidditch players in school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw if anyone has a super fancy name for the Cerberus~~ xD


	16. Malfoy prayers for peaceful summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dudes, the last chapter! I'll post some extras next week :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For A_Perverted_Romance_Addict Senpai who reminded me to post this... Also I hope this counts as a good birthday gift... :P

The school year ended and students were given their report cards, together with a warning to pack all of their belongings before boarding the train and not to do magic during summer. The day before they were scheduled to leave was pure chaos with students running up and down the castle, collecting items they left behind throughout the year. 

It was then that Remus realized just how much time Slytherins and Hufflepuffs spend at each other's common rooms. Sure he found Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and even a few Gryffindors occasionally hanging out down in the dungeons with the Slytherins, but he thought they were more of an exception to the rule than a common occurrence. On the last day three out of four houses had the entrances to their dorms wide opened while hosting an influx of older students carrying suspicious amounts of clothing and other items that they left there. One Hufflepuff took one look around her room, packed everything she had and took it to her boyfriend's room in Ravenclaw because it was easier than getting everything from the tower back to the basement.

Remus made his way to Severus’ quarters, where he found the scariest Professor napping on the couch with the Dark Lord on Hiatus reading the Daily Prophet on the floor. Rolling his eyes at the familiar sight, he also sat down on the fluffy dark gray rug and let Tom cast a silencing spell around them so they wouldn't accidentally wake Severus up.

“Dumbledore tried once again to convince the public that I’m the Dark Lord. Rita called him a 'senile old goat’ and proceeded to sing praises to me and my good looks.”

“So nothing new. Does it say he's looking for new teachers?” they all knew Remus didn't plan on returning next year. He could only see Fenrir when Tom and Severus covered for him and he really missed his pack. 

“Just the standard 'We need a teacher. Apply if you're not afraid of dying.’ This ad was in the Prophet before we were even born…”

“Oh by the way the chaos of students running from one common room to another doesn't seem to be a new development,” Remus never noticed anything like that when he was a student, but he also had his hands full with helping James, Sirius and Peter. Those three were hopeless when it came to packing.

“According to the portraits in Malfoy Manor, this was a thing from very beginning of Hogwarts.”

“Well I can't say I'm surprised that us Gryffindors stayed oblivious to it.”

* * * 

Unbeknownst to the rest of the staff, the Headmaster summoned Harry and Dudley to his office. He compelled two Hufflepuffs to deliver the pieces of parchment with requests to meet him - he included the instructions on how to get to his office and a hint to what the password for the gargoyle was. 

Harry and Dudley reached the statue almost at the same time but neither said the password - Dudley because he didn't know it and Harry because he cooed at the gargoyle that started demanding pets. He gladly obliged and played with the animated stone statue while ignoring the other boy's whining. 

Dumbledore waited and waited and waited until the two boys were royally late and he asked the portraits in his office where they were. Some of the previous Headmasters and Headmistress shot him a glare for interrupting their game of cards while others snored on in their frames. Sighting, Headmaster Dippet put down his cards and went to check on the missing students. They mostly ignored Dumbledore's orders and provided him false information while warning students of his plans, but sometimes they had to do as he asked. Before long Dippet was back in the office with news on Harry and Dudley's whereabouts.

“The boys are downstairs playing with Countess Adelaide Rutherford,” the previous Headmaster said as he returned to the game of poker he had been in the middle of before leaving. 

Dumbledore sighted and headed down the circular staircase that he insisted everyone used despite there being a platform on the bottom that acted like a muggle elevator. Normally he used a broom to fly up and down when he needed to, but he couldn’t do that in front of the two boys. He was seriously too old for climbing all of the stairs in this castle. On some days he could have sworn the stairs kept multiplying whenever he was in a hurry…

As Dippet said, the boys were playing with the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to his office. Somehow they had obtained a flower crown that the gargoyle proudly wore. 

“Looks like you’re having fun, my boys, but wouldn’t you prefer to come up for a cup of tea?” he said with his grandfatherly smile that he used every time he wanted to guilt trip someone into doing as he asked.

The two apparently remembered why they were even there in the first place so they followed the Headmaster up to his office. Harry loved the round staircase - it didn’t move like the those around the castle but it was round and the stairs weren’t rectangular but more like slanted triangles because of it. The inside parts were raised and cut so that they all formed a five centimeters wide slide along the length of the staircase that Harry decided to be the best part of the stairs to walk on. The other two didn’t notice as they were too busy trying to ascend without showing how much the stairs tired them out. 

When they arrived at Dumbledore’s office, the house elves sent them tea with honey and Dumbledore offered them lemon drops. Dudley gladly took a fistful while Harry politely declined. He would gladly take some if they were cherry flavoured, but it would be impolite to say so when he was just offered what seemed to be the Headmaster’s favourite candy. 

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come up here, aren’t you?” Dumbledore started, pleased that at least one of the boys accepted the candy, spelled with a mild compulsion to agree with what he said. He wasn’t worried about Harry declining - he observed the boy enough to realise he prefers lollipops to all other candy. He should get some lollipops for the boy when he next summoned him to his office…. 

Without waiting for a response (Harry really wanted to say that they’re here for the tea), he continued “Harry, after the death of your parents you were supposed to live with your blood relatives so I did a bit of research and I found out that you two are cousins.”

Headmaster's eyes twinkled as Dudley turned to Harry and asked “We’re cousins?!” 

“Apparently. So what does this have to do with horse racing?”

Dudley gave Harry a weird look before looking at the Headmaster, who elaborated on how Lily’s love created a blood ward that protected Harry, but he needed to be near his blood family to recharge its power. 

“Again, horse races?” Harry knew very well what Dumbledore wanted, but after observing Tom, he learned that making the Headmaster spell everything out can be a lot of fun. 

Harry had to work hard not to giggle and ruin his innocent, clueless face when Dumbledore sighed and said “What I’m saying is that you’ll have to spend a week or two over the summer with your aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley. I would send an owl to your guardians, but owls have trouble reaching them. I already sent a letter to Petunia to pick you up from the train station.” 

“Ok!” Harry agreed - Severus, Tom and Remus were required to stay at Hogwarts for another week before they could go home, so he couldn’t visit Remus’ pack and Will promised that Harry could tag along with Tom and Chaos when they’d go visit their family in Sweden - Chaos had been telling them about Harry and Tom for years and the scandinavians insisted they come visit as soon as the school year ended, meaning Harry would have to wait on the island for a week. Spending that time meeting other relatives was a lot more of a fun option even if he was rarely bored on the island. As for Dudley - Harry really didn’t notice him all that much when he left his friends alone. 

Satisfied with the answer, Dumbledore dismissed the two students and spent the rest of the day feeling extremely good about himself.

* * *

At the end of the day the students and staff gathered in the Great Hall for the end-of-the-year feast. As everyone knew that Slytherin had the most points, Harry and the Weasley twins set up a nice celebration prank when the Hall was empty and could now be seen looking positively angelic. The mood at the various tables was very versatile. Slytherins were overjoyed with being able to win the House Cup once again, Ravenclaws felt proud for successfully focusing on school work and not their personal projects long enough to almost catch up to Slytherin - they were only fifteen points behind this year. Hufflepuffs were a bit disappointed with being behind Ravenclaw, but they’d had a fun year so not being neck-to-neck with the winning house wasn’t too bad. Gryffindors really didn’t know how to feel about being dead last - they were used to their random placing and regular point loss with all of the dares they went through and being oftenly favoured by the staff. Older years didn’t care much while the younger students blamed each other for every time someone lost a point. All in all it was pretty much a standard atmosphere.

Soon enough Dumbledore arrived and the chatter quieted down as he stood before the High table to give his speech. As normally he said some run of the mill words that were meant to make kids laugh, but came out quite cringy, before he told them exactly how many points each house had, announcing Slytherin as the winners. Severus felt like a ghost passed through him as he saw the expression on the Headmaster’s face. The man obviously wanted to end their winning streak, but the moment he decorated the Great Hall in green and silver, Dumbledore could only mimic a goldfish as some song started to play and all of the muggle raised students yelled “We have all the ways to be W I C K E D.” 

Somehow the lyrics to the song appeared in the air so everyone could see it so they could yell along the chorus part as the muggleborns who knew the song decided to make their friends dance - for some reason the tables and benches grew legs that carried them around the Hall so all five tables made a rough circle, giving them a nice dancefloor. 

Dumbledore tried to stop them, but didn't get the chance because Severus said: “At least there’s no blood on the dance floor.”

The sound of Remus’ palm hitting his face was drowned by the laughter in the Hall. It was the first year in about forever when all four houses smiled and had fun after the winner of House cup was announced. Hogwarts was happy.

* * * 

The next morning students boarded the train very early in the morning and Draco couldn’t help feeling relieved to have some peace and normalcy for the summer. Harry was his best friend and he loved him like a brother, but sometimes hanging out with that kid was just too stressful for the young Malfoy heir. 

In September alone there had been over 20 attacks on Harry from various individuals ranging from first to seventh years. He knew that Harry maybe noticed one or two of them but most of them flew over his head. Literally. Twice Harry sneezed and leaned forward and that caused the spell to narrowly miss him. Once he noticed that his shoelaces were untied and ducked to tie them up just in time to dodge a spell a seventh year Ravenclaw sent at him. Once the attacker missed and the spell ricocheted from a wall back at Harry - it would have hit him if Harry hadn’t turned around to ask Blaise where his mother got the chocolates that she sent him that morning. 

Luckley for Draco the older years soon realised that spells tended to simply _bounce_ off Harry. Draco spent quite some time thinking about it, because the spells he and their friends sent at Harry never bounced. In the end he realised that spells only bounced if your intent was to hurt while spells meant to do something innocent, like a mild stinging charm to get his attention connected without a problem. 

Over time the number of attacks dropped exponentially. There were still those that tried bullying firsties but they gave up when Harry didn’t even realise they were trying to hurt him. Also Weasley and Dursley tried hitting him at least four times each week with their fists and the two spells they knew… Harry somehow dodged everything while not even noticing what they were doing. He was sure they were just extremely clumsy...

Now the first year Slytherins, a Hufflepuff friend of Daphne called Sally-Anne, Neville and Hermione were nicely squashed into a comfy compartment and would soon be home. Harry told them he’d be spending the first week of summer break with Dudley and his family since they were cousins. Draco felt like he should fear for Dursley’s sanity, but the boy was a stupid bully who didn’t know the difference between left and right and Draco really didn’t care about him. 

Their families all planned to travel during the summer so they tried to synch when they’d go shopping for school supplies. Hermione wanted to do it on the same day as they get their letters while Pansy insisted they go get general supplies before the letters arrived and then grab the school books a few days after getting the book list. The boys wanted to buy everything a week before school so they could get everything done at once. They finally decided that they’d be meeting at Diagon Alley in the second week of August since it was Sally’s birthday and they could also celebrate Harry and Neville’s birthdays. Hermione was still a bit upset, but the others told her she could always buy her books when she got the list and then join them as they were getting their items.

Plans made, they spent the rest of the train ride playing games and eating sweets they bought from the Trolley lady. 

All too soon they arrived at King's cross station where the adults were waiting for them. Harry and Hermione said their goodbyes to their friends - Harry once again got denied when he asked Neville about turning Trevor in a turtle - and headed off to the barrier between the magical and muggle train stations where they were quickly spotted by Hermione's parents. 

It didn't take long before a tall, thin woman with a short blond bob haircut approached them and asked for Harry. She was his aunt, Petunia. Harry looked around and spotted Dudley with a big ball. He blinked in confusion before he realised that that wasn't a ball but a man. Dudley obviously took a lot more after his father than his mother, especially because the man was swatting his arms around just like Dudley often did - just the kid tended to fall on his face afterwards while the man stood quite firmly.

Harry felt Petunia put her hand protectively on his shoulder as they walked past - Dudley ignored his mother and she ignored the man. When Harry asked her about that, she told him that her and Veron divorced when strange things started happening - Dudley's accidental magic - and Veron got the custody while she was only allowed to see Dudley when he came to visit over the weekends. She could count the number of weekends she got to spend with her son who preferred being with his father who let him get away with anything. 

She first drove them to a pizzeria so they could eat something before heading home.


	17. Extra #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two descriptions that I had no idea where to put, but you guys might enjoy them

Slytherin dorm

The room was big and circular. It looked like a bubble of space got trapped in the rock that supported the weight of the castle above and turned into a comfortable living space. The floor was flat while the walls and the ceiling created this feeling of being inside a bubble. The stone walls were reinforced with various spells and charms that prevented cracks and other kinds of damage that could cause the room to collapse. The walls were capable of absorbing all magic that hit them so the kids couldn’t accidentally destroy the room. After years of stray spells getting absorbed, the walls started to act like a dampener that prevented tracking what was cast in the Slytherin dorms. 

A quarter of the wall across from the entrance was a window looking out into the Black Lake. It wasn’t made of glass or any other material, but it was created from pure magic, creating a flexible membrane that allowed the students to dive into the lake at any time. The room had a few sofas, chairs, tables and even a pile of green beanbags. 

On one side of the window was a fireplace, charmed to heat the entire room and all of the dorms equally. Above the fireplace stood a massive portrait with a silver frame. Students suspected it was the portrait of Salazar Slytherin, but it had been empty for as long as anyone could remember. On the other side there was a staircase that split into two parts. One followed the curve of the window while the other one mirrored it as the two staircases turned into a corridor that connected across the room, exactly above the fireplace. 

The staircases and the round corridor were secured with an a meter tall railing and spells that prevented anyone from falling down. The corridor hosted fourteen doors - each had either a silver number for girls or a green one for boys on it, written in Roman numerals. The doors lead to staircases going either up or down that ended in their own corridors that connected the separate dorm rooms that were spread across the bottom of the black lake.

First through third year rooms hosted up to six students at the same time. In fourth year the students started to share their rooms with only one other classmate while seventh years had their own rooms.

Each of the rooms belonging to the first three years had, just like the common room, a staircase that led to the second floor, but in the rooms the corridor that made up the upper floor was bigger, so there was enough room for a long desk, that curved along the line of the protective wooden barrier that prevented objects and living beings alike from falling down. There was also a bookshelf on the wall where the students could put their books on. Other items were to be stored in a magically expanded drawer under each individual’s beds.

In the rooms for the upper years there was still the second floor, even if it wasn’t needed, because the students liked it and they prefered to have bathrooms on the same level as their beds - especially in the mornings. 

Seventh years were free to do whatever they wanted with their rooms, as long as they were passed on in the same condition as they were at the start of the school year. This caused the rooms to be highly personalised, to the extent that one still had pink walls despite the student who turned changed their color graduating years ago.

Clothes

Luna looked like a porcelain doll. Despite the fact that the student population was quite desensitized from seeing unusual clothing whenever they met a witch or wizard that pretend to be a muggle, they couldn’t help but stare.

Normal school uniform consisted of a white shirt, black slacks for boys and a skirt for girls together with dark gray socks and black shoes but in Hogwarts they were allowed to wear whatever they pleased as long as they wore their school robes on top of it. What Harry and his sister wore was technically allowed even if no-one thought of doing it before.

Harry was oftenly dressed as a nature spirit, Wood or High Elf and Luna's wardrobe was erie compatible with his day to day outfits despite pastel colours domineering over the earthly colours Harry preferred. When he wore brown she went with pink and if he chose a green tunic shirt she was bound to wear a blue dress even if they never talked about what they would be wearing the following day.

It honestly wouldn't be all that noticeable if they just adjusted their daily clothing and put a lose school robe over it - as many students realised the robes you could buy at Madam Malkin’s were basically one-size-fits-all with adjustable lengths of the robe and sleeves. What stood out the most about Harry and Luna's clothing were their robes. They had two kinds of robes - one for warmer and one for colder weather. 

Their winter robes had, just like all other school robes, loose sleeves that trapped the air and created a nice isolation layer that, with the help of magic, kept them nicely warm even if they wore T-shirts underneath. The most distinctive change wasn't the general shape of the robe, but the fact that their robes were for all intents and purposes long hoodies. Harry's robe had a zipper from his waist up, so it was just like a hoodie with a bit extra on the bottom. Luna prefered her robe to only reach her knees so she could go for a cute anime girl look.

Before Luna started school, only a few people noticed the subtle silver designs around the edges of Harry's black robe, together with an occasional white picture in the size of a fist in a corner. On the first day of classes when Luna joined the student population of Hogwarts, everyone noticed the colours of her robes. It was very hard to miss a pearl dot in the midst of everyone wearing black. The original plan was to give her the same robes as Harry, but she didn't like how black looked with her pale complexion and silver hair. Pink, so light it could be mistaken for white, was her favourite since it made her look like a Princess and her family loved to indulge her. She also had ~~hoodies and sweaters~~ robes in various shades of pink and blue, but steered away from green and dark colours - they suited Harry better.

During warmer months the two siblings wore robes that could be described as battle outfits. Some robes were either short sleeved or didn't have any sleeves at all while others had tight fitting sleeves that didn't obstruct your movement. 

The front was made so the line of buttons was formed sideways from left hip to right shoulder. Some robes only had a handful buttons just so the robe would stay closed while others had a full line of them. The part above the heart hosted various motives that the siblings changed depending on their mood.

The bottom part was for the most part long and it honestly looked like a floor length skirt with a parting on the left side. It took Harry quite a while to learn how to chanel Severus and his walking style in a way that would work with his clothes. Luna picked up Elise's style but while the older woman looked like she was carried by imaginary water currents, anyone looking at Luna could swear she was floating in the air.


	18. Extra #2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Hmmm I should put a bit of Nik's backstory in the summary before that chapter  
> Nik: You're writing my backstory? Can I help?  
> Me: Umm sure, it's just a quick overview...  
> Nik: _Tries to be Remi the fic hijacking wolf_  
>  Me: NIK!!!  
> Me: _Busy arguing with Nik_  
>  Will: Uuuuu backstories!!

Short history of Nik

He was born a squib and sent to live in the Muggle world, where he made a name for himself as Nikola Tesla. One day an experiment went wrong and he ended up being sent to the past - more specifically he landed in front of Chaos about a year after he got the powers of Chaos. Of course a time traveller is as chaotic as it gets so Nik got a Gift of Chaos that enabled him to transfigure pretty much any non-organic matter. Despite him staying in the wizarding world, a ripple was made that sped up the development of the Muggle world and that's why Harry knows modern references even if the story is set in the original timeline.

So after a while Nik got tired of Britain and moved around. In the 14th century (around 1350) he moved to France and kinda forgot about the fact that he doesn't age. People started asking questions, so he came up with the Philosopher's stone. "Perenelle Flamel" was actually Elise who came to visit every now and then.

In 1950s Nik met young Albus Dumbledore who wanted to be his apprentice. Nik accepted and taught Dumbledore some basic chemistry before teaching him alchemy. Albus learned quickly since he was near the top of his alchemy class that was taught as an elective in 6th and 7th year. It didn’t take long before he started asking his master about the Philosopher’s stone - Nik had forgotten about the lie he came up with, so he genuinely didn’t know what his apprentice was talking about. Later that day he asked Elise if she had any idea what that stone was supposed to be.

She didn’t remember either, but Will overheard them since they were near the potions lab where he was brewing some Blood replenishing potion that he and his pirates had almost run out of. The three of them started talking about it, because the pirate was the only one whose memory hadn’t failed him, and Will totally forgot about his potion so by the time Elise asked him what he was doing in the potions lab, the potion had burned and gotten stuck to the cauldron. Nik used his gift to remove the stuck potion off the sides of the cauldron and formed it into a rock. They all looked at each other and identical grins formed on their faces. They had found the Philosopher’s stone.

They suspected Albus wanted the stone and decided to put the young wizard to a test. The rock was put into a jewelry box and “hidden” on a shelf in the alchemy lab in the cabin where Nik lived as Nicholas Flamel, and a few weeks later Nik asked Albus to fetch him something from that shelf.

Just as expected, Dumbledore saw the stone and asked about it, but didn't take it. They thought that he might be just curious like every intellectual would be and Nik started teaching him more advanced alchemy. The incident with the stone was forgotten, but then one night the stone went missing and Dumbledore never returned to France again.

Short history of Will

Will’s father, Morgan, was a pirate who had an affair with a witch who got pregnant after their one night together - she didn’t tell her family and hid the pregnancy with glamours. When Will was born his mother wanted to get rid of him, but one of the servants of a noble family took him in since they knew his father. Will was raised by that servant for five years until the same pirate crew came back to town. The servant told Morgan what had happened and how Will’s mother got married to Morgan’s half brother, the heir of everything that their father owned - Morgan decided to take care of Will and raise him as a pirate, just as he would have done all along, if he knew that his one night stand got pregnant. Morgan was actually the bastard son of the noble family whose servant took in Will. He had become a pirate, and later pirate captain, and while sailing he was writing down stories he had heard - once he found out about Will, he read them as bedtime stories and together with the rest of the pirate crew reenacted some of the scenes. For sea wolves the crew loved the stories and had monthly competitions on who could better act out some characters.

Years passed and Morgan got old and decided to retire from the pirate business - he wanted Will to take over the ship and the crew but the young man decided to take care for his father in his old age. One of the captain’s old friends was to be in charge of the ship. They moved to London where they planned on living from the riches they accumulated as pirates. At first no-one asked questions, but then people got suspicious because they didn’t know what the two of them did for a living. So Will took his father’s story book and told the people his father was a successful writer. Common folk believed him because no-one could read, but some wanted to know exactly what kind of books he wrote. So Will told them that it was a secret because they were turning the stories into theatre scripts so even commoners could enjoy them. With that he got rid of the nobles who would never step foot into a theatre for commoners, but now he had to actually make a play script. Luckily it didn't have to be any good because only uneducated people would attend and he could practically do whatever he wanted. 

So Will wrote and ended up hiding a plethora of subtle insults in the dialogue. By the time the script was finished, one theatre already had the sole rights to perform the show and many couldn’t wait to see the final product. Will really overdid the hype for it. Still the overall excitement made the actors do their best and the show ended up being an unbelievable success - Will honestly thought that commoners would find it too complex and nobles would believe it too underneath them so he would be done with it and pretend that the book was much better. Sadly for his free time, he was told to write more stories. And so he did…

Will never knew who his mother was but he learned quite early on that he could do unusual things like making the noble kids trip when they wanted to pick on him or making flowers and vegetables grow even during winter. The old servant that took him in made sure no-one knew of this and encouraged young Will to practice in secret. By the time Morgan and Will settled down in London, Will had a good grasp on his magic and was able to use it to make his plays even better than they were before. A slight illusion here and there made the actors look just the way he wanted them and the main actors never got sick. He even managed to make the theatre a bit warmer during winter months and a bit cooler during summer.

And so the years went on and less than half a decade later Will had to bury his father - his success and wealth enabled him to give him a burial befitting of someone of noble blood. By then he missed the sea greatly so he packed his most valuable possessions and returned to his father’s crew. He told the people that he was going to visit relatives in his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, and pretended to travel up north, but as soon as he left London behind he turned to the seashore where his father’s ship and crew were hidden. 

He got named captain the moment the older pirates saw him. The new additions to the crew didn’t trust him but with some subtle help of his magic, Will proved himself to be a capable leader. It did help that he wrote many stories while in London and the original crew members acted out many of his new scripts. 

It didn’t take long after he rejoined the crew before they stumbled upon the Dark Lady of that time and Will being Will started writing sonnets for her that he quoted every time they met. Some of them were flattering, some weren’t, and by the time he started quoting his 130th sonnet, she had enough of Will’s bullshit. Before he even reached the midpoint, he was silenced and taken to a deserted island in the Norwegian sea. 

At first Will pouted for not being able to finish quoting the sonnet - if you listen to it to the end it’s quite sweet but that hag had to silence him before he got even close… And he still couldn’t speak. If there was one thing that he learned as a pirate it was that alcohol cures everything, so he went to search the island for anything he could use to get some. It took him less than 5 minutes to realise that the island was covered by some kind of illusion. He had no idea how to get around that problem but the moment he got it in his head that the illusion might be hiding something edible, he destroyed it in record time. 

He was rewarded for his efforts since the wards and glamours hid an impressive secret stash of all kinds of alcohol he could think of. For some he had had no idea they existed but he still tried everything.

An hour later Chaos came to the deserted island to find out that Will drank half of his alcohol collection and passed out with a bottle of rum still in his mouth. With a sigh he levitated a bucket of seawater over and dumped it onto the unconscious man.

Will woke up and grabbed the nearest pointy object his hand reached, which happened to be a quill, and challenged the unknown man to a duel.

“Of what? Love sonnets?”

At that Will actually looked at his weapon of choice and shrugged. “Why not… By the way do you have anything to drink? It seems that the rum’s gone…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this a bit early... so give me attention xD


End file.
